Published 17:10 IST, November 25th 2020
As Elon Musk zooms past Bill Gates in rich people list, Indians Google who is the richest?
Indians have been googling ‘who is the richest person in the world’ since Tesla CEO Elon Musk surpassed Microsoft co-found Bill Gates to become 2nd richest.
- World News
- 2 min read
Curious Indians have been googling ‘who is the richest person in the world’ since Tesla CEO Elon Musk surpassed Microsoft co-found Bill Gates earlier this week and became the world’s second-richest person with net worth soaring from $7.2 billion to $127.9 billion. As per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, SpaceX CEO added 100.3 billion in his net worth this year after a sudden surge in Tesla’s share price. In January, among 500 richest people in the world, Musk was at number 35.
Since the reports emerged of Musk becoming the second-richest person in the world just after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and before Gates, Indians have been googling about the most wealthy person in the world with searches including ‘Elon Musk richest man’ and ‘world richest man’. Some internet users also wanted to know the richest person in Asia or Nepal or top ten richest persons across the globe.
Credits: Google Trends
Musk responds to overtaking Gates
The Tesla CEO himself responded to the news of overtaking Gates’ wealth and expressed astonishment on Twitter. The year 2020 has been pleasantly good for Musk with his fortunes being directly linked to Tesla of which according to Bloomberg, the last own 20% of the company’s stock. Meanwhile, this year, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Tesla’s stock spiked almost 524% contributing to Musk adding over $100 billion to his wealth.
Outside of Tesla, Elon Musk also oversees SpaceX, his space exploration firm that recently made historic launches including the missions in collaboration with NASA. He is also the father of six and chairman of Musk Foundation which is an organisation that supporters research into renewable energy along with humans in space. Just last week, Tesla was accepted into the S&P 500 and is set to join the index next month.
As per reports, Bill Gates would be an even bigger billionaire if not for his philanthropy. Along with his wife Melinda Gates, Microsoft co-founder had donated most of the wealth to charity years ago. Currently, Amazon CEO is the world’s richest person with net worth being $182 billion. A few months ago, Bezos’ wealth reached a milestone that has never been achieved by any other human being even after adjusting inflation.
Updated 17:08 IST, November 25th 2020