Elon Musk's Wealth Hit $222 Billion As He Widens His Lead Over Jeff Bezos

October 12, 2021

Elon Musk's personal wealth is now $222 billion, widening his gap as the richest person in the world according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. Musk's personal wealth skyrocketed an extra $10.6 billion after a secondary share sale by investors, announced last week, valued SpaceX over $100 billion.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon (AMZN), follows Musk with a net worth of $191.6 billion. Musk tweeted a second-place medal at Bezos early today. Thanks to both Musk's Tesla shares and his majority stake in privately-held SpaceX, where he serves as CEO, Musk has accumulated vast wealth.

Musk gained $8.6 billion since Friday's closing and more than $52 billion year-to-date, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index says. Tesla (TSLA) shares are also climbing, as they recover from a rocky year. They are up 13% year-to-date, far less than its 743% gain in 2020. Still, that's a big improvement from when they were down 22% for the year in May.

Musk and Bezos — the two richest men on earth — are embroiled in a billionaire space race. Even before it launched the first tourism mission to space on Inspiration4 in September, Musk's SpaceX won massive NASA and US military contracts and flew the most powerful rocket in operation.