Elon Musk overtakes Mark Zuckerberg to become the world’s third-richest person

Elon Musk has overtaken Mark Zuckerberg to become the world’s third richest person with an estimated personal fortune of $115.4billion.

The 49-year-old PayPal founder has seen his wealth rise by $87.8 billion this year off the back of a surge in Tesla stocks, which have increased in value by 500%.

There are now just two people in the world who have amassed more wealth than Musk – Microsoft founder Bill Gates, with an estimated wealth of $125billion and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, with a fortune of $200billion.

Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook, is estimated to be worth $111billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Tesla shares have been on a meteoric rise since October last year, and were only briefly dampened by the coroanvirus shutdown which hit in March.

It comes after the company began turning a consistent profit, meaning it could soon be added to the blue-chip S&P 500 index, further boosting its value.

The share value hit an all-time high of $935 per share on June 12 and had more-than doubled again by the end of last month, hitting $2,213 on August 28.

Shares are now sitting around $500 each after the company completed a forward split – where a company multiplies the amount of shares each person holds.

The move doesn’t devalue the company overall, but it does reduce the value of each individual share, with the aim being to encourage more people to invest.

Tesla used a 5:1 split, meaning each shareholder now owns five times the number of shares they did before, while new investors will pay a fifth the price for new shares.

The company saw its overall value rise 10 per cent following the split, as new investors rushed to snap up the cheaper stocks.

Tesla also announced on Tuesday that it is planning a fresh round of fundraising, aiming to raise $5billion through stock sales.

The news sent the company’s stock up by another 3 per cent. Tesla is now worth an estimated $440billion.

Apple also completed its own stock split at the weekend, going 4:1 and bringing the value of each individual share down from around $500 per share to $130 per share.

The splits both helped generate activity that propelled the market to one of its best August performances since the 1980s.

The S&P 500 has risen 7 per cent this month, putting it on track for its biggest August jump since 1986.

Meanwhile the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 7.6 per cent in August, its best performance since 1984. 

Last week, Musk unveiled Neuralink technology which he has invested $80million in, in the hopes of making humans able to control computers with their brains.

The three little pig’s demo, as he called it, showed an animal named Gertrude with the brain implant. While she snuffed around in a pen, viewers saw her brain activity on a large screen.

The livestream also gave the first look of the redesigned chip, which is the size of a large coin attached to wires that replace a piece of skull when connected to the brain.

‘It’s like a Fitbit in your skull’, Musk said during the event.

‘It goes flush on your skull. I could have a Link right now and you wouldn’t know. Maybe I do.’

Although the public may have hoped to see a person use the powers of the chip, the event suggests Neuralink is getting closer to Musk’s vision of allowing humans to control computers and smartphones with their mind.