The billionaire has also offered to sell his Tesla stock and donate US$6 billion to ending world hunger if the United Nations’ World Food Programme can describe exactly how the money will be used
Elon Musk, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Tesla and Spacex has become the first person in the world to have a fortune that is worth more than US$300 billion with his current net worth of US$311 billion.
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The billionaire’s jump in his fortune comes after Musk added US$141 billion to his net worth this year alone, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Now, the gap between Musk and the world’s second-richest person, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, stands at US$116 billion. Bezo’s net worth is currently at US$195 billion.
Of Musk’s US$311 billion, US$190 billion comes from his Tesla equity. Tesla itself also officially reached a public market valuation of $1 trillion just last week after the company added over US$100 billion to its market capitalisation in a single day.
The valuation came after it was announced that Hertz will acquire 100,000 Teslas to set up what will be considered the largest electric vehicle rental fleet in North America.
Following the deal, Tesla saw its stock close at US$1,025 which bumped the company’s total value up to over US$1 trillion.
The rest of Musk’s US$311 billion comes from private assets and miscellaneous liabilities which amount to approximately US$46.6 billion in total.
With the bump in his net worth, Musk was also quick to throw a challenge towards philanthropy.
In a tweet on October 31, Musk challenged the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) by saying, “If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6 billion will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.”
He continued by saying, “But it must be open-source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent.”
His tweets were in response to a tweet by Dr Eli David, a researcher who was disputing a claim that just two per cent of Musk’s wealth could solve world hunger.