Elon Musk’s net worth over $100bn as Tesla stock soars 400%

Elon Musk’s net worth has surpassed $100 billion for the first time, thanks to Tesla’s surging share price that has risen more than 400 percent so far this year.

On Wednesday, Musk’s net worth rose by $5.46 billion to reach $101 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the world’s richest people.

Musk remains the fourth richest person in the world, according to the index. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest, with a net worth of $202 billion.

So far this year, Bezos has added $87 billion to his net worth, while Musk’s has risen by $73 billion.

Elon Musk’s net worth has surpassed $100 billion for the first time, thanks to Tesla’s surging share price that has risen more than 400 percent so far this year

Tesla’s surging share price has risen more than 400 percent so far this year

It comes as Tesla stock continues to surge, rising more than 5 percent in midday trading on Thursday to $2,272.13. 

Last week, Tesla’s market capitalization raced pass Walmart in value, marking another extraordinary milestone in the electric car maker’s rise.  

The stock has jumped 45 percent just since August 11, when Tesla announced a five-for-one stock split.

Tesla’s stock is among the highest priced, per share, on Wall Street, and the Palo Alto, California-based company has said it was looking to make its shares more accessible to employees and investors.

However, with Robinhood and other brokerages increasingly letting customers by fractions of individual shares, the benefit of stock splits has become less obvious, making Tesla’s rally following the announcement of its stock split surprising to some professional investors.

Tesla’s stock is currently priced at an exceedingly high 148 times expected earnings, according to Refinitiv, and that valuation will not be affected by the upcoming stock split.

Tesla will start rolling out ‘made-in-China’ Model Y vehicles at its factory in Shanghai starting in 2021, the Global Times tweeted on Thursday, citing an unnamed executive.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $202 billion

Investors expect important announcements when Tesla holds its long-awaited Battery Day on September 22, the same day as its annual shareholder meeting.

The company is expected to present battery innovations, with analysts at Morgan Stanley predicting a company announcement on supplying ‘superior’ battery packs to the auto industry. 

Musk has suggested the U.S. electric carmaker may be able to mass produce longer-life batteries with 50 percent more energy density in three to four years. 

A very “limited number of stockholders” will be able to attend the events due to pandemic-related restrictions, Tesla said, and a lottery will be held to select attendees.