Elon Musk Surpasses Zuckerberg As The World’s Third Richest Person With A $110BN Net Worth

While the broader market is finally taking on some water, the two stocks that have come to define the bubble euphoria gripping the market – AAPL and TSLA – continue storming higher. The move is perplexing virtually everyone – except those who are buying probably – because most somewhat serious analysts had expected investors to buy into the stock split frenzy but sell afterward. Instead, the pre-split buying has continued, resulting in such laughable titles from Bloomberg seeking to “goalseek” what is going on.

One person who is laughing (all the way to the bank) is Elon Musk, who thanks to the “bullish” stock split is now the third-richest person in the world.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Musk surpassed Facebook’s humanoid co-founder Mark Zuckerberg as shares of Tesla continued their unrelenting rally after undergoing a forward stock split. As of 11:25 a.m., Musk was worth $111.3 billion compared with $110.5 billion for Zuckerberg. The table below shows the absolute net worth of the world’s top 10 billionaires as of Friday’s close. This morning, Musk’s net worth has already rocketed by another $7 billion, putting him in the 3rd spot.

As Bloomberg notes, “Musk has seen a meteoric rise in his wealth, with his net worth growing by $76.1 billion this year as Tesla shares surged more than 475%. Also helpful: an audacious pay package – the largest corporate pay deal ever struck between a chief executive officer and a board of directors – that could yield him more than $50 billion if all goals are met.”

What is remarkable is that it was only a few months ago that Musk joined the Top 10 club, and only last week did the Tesla CEO join Zuckerberg, Bezos and Bill Gates in the ultra exclusive centi-billionaire club as tech stocks surged.

Meanwhile, as the uber-rich get richer, the poor are not only getting poorer, but desperate for some action out of Congress to mitigate their fate as millions have found themselves without a job after the coronavirus shutdowns.

That said, Musk still has a long way to become the world’s richest person: to overtake Bezos, whose worth about $200 billion, TSLA stock would have to double from here, a move which at least some optimistic punters who have been aggressively buying TSLA $800 calls expiring Sept 4 all morning…

… believe may happen as soon as this Friday.