Elon Musk Becomes Second Richest Person In The World; Overtakes Bill Gates

His net worth is now $128 billion. With a market capitalisation approaching US$500 billion - not to mention Tesla's forthcoming inclusion within the S&P 500 starting from next month - for the time being, we can only expect Musk's wealth to snowball with every passing day.

The report said a rally by Tesla on Monday earned Musk about $7.2 billion, bringing his new net worth to $127.9 billion.

He predicted a year ago that self-driving Teslas, which are still being refined, would boost the company's market cap to $500 billion.

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has overtaken Bill Gates to become the second richest man in the world, behind Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Bloomberg has assessed.

To be eligible to join the S&P 500 a company must be based in the U.S., have a market capitalization of at least $8.2billion, be liquid and at least half of its shares must be available to the public, according to CNN.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has added $100.3 billion to his net worth this year, surpassing Bill Gates to become the world's second-richest person. Recently, Elon Musk had ridiculed Bill Gates, saying the latter does not know about electric cars. The public differences began when Gates said even though he thought Tesla has helped drive electric-car innovation, he bought one from Porsche. This is largely due to the surge in Tesla's share price.

Tesla will enter the S&P 500, a stock market index that measures the performance of 500 large companies listed on the U.S. stock exchange, on December 21 after it failed to make the cut back in September. Tesla shares were up 2% in pre-market trading on Tuesday, and its stock is up nearly 730% this year.

The report further notes that Musk's fortunes have been majorly driven by Tesla shares which are valued four times more than his SpaceX stakes. His enormous fortune does not mean he is a lavish spender: he's said he wouldn't like to own physical possessions or "own a house".