South Africa-born Teslaand SpaceXboss Elon Musk has seen his net worth surpass $440 billion (R7.8 trillion), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
That figure sets a new milestone for the world’s richest person.
That amount is also bigger than South Africa’s latest available Gross Domestic Product (GDP)figure according to the World Bank which, as of 2023, stood at $377.78 billion.
GDP is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country. GDP is often used to measure the economic health of a country.
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Musk’s sudden jump in wealth came after SpaceX and its investors agreed to purchase as much as $1.25 billion of insider shares in a transaction that valued the rocket and satellite company at about $350 billion.
The transaction increased Pretoria-born Musk’s personal wealth by about $50 billion to $440 billion, Bloomberg said.
Took a huge leap
Musk’s wealth, largely based on the share price of Tesla and the valuation of SpaceX, already took a huge leap after Donald Trump won last month’s US presidential election.
Tesla’s share price is up by about 65 percent since the vote in November.
Musk has been a prominent political donor and advocate for Trump, pumping a staggering $270 million into the Republican’s campaign.
He has been an ever-present sidekick for Trump since his election victory, inviting him to watch a rocket launch in Texas by his SpaceX company.
Musk’s businesses all have varying degrees of interactions with US and foreign governments, and his proximity to Trump has raised concerns that Musk will be able to give advantage to his own interests.
Musk is also expected to secure a reduction in regulations for Tesla as well as elimination of tax credits on electric vehicles that will punish the car-maker’s rivals.
Trump has selected Musk to co-head the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is set to deliver billions of dollars of cuts in federal spending and slash government red tape.
For interest’s sake, Trump’s net worth currently stands at $6.72 billion and places him 472nd in the list of world’s richest people.
Meanwhile, by contrast, Forbes’ Real Time Billionaires List listed Elon Musk’s net worth at ‘only’ $374.9 billion.
