As Tesla's market value approached $500 billion, Elon Musk had a one-word reaction that was 'liked' over 16,000 times on the microblogging platform Twitter.
"Wow," he wrote in response to a tweet about a surge in Tesla's share price.
Wow
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2020
Many analysts say the wealth gap between Musk and Gate is not huge, and it's possible they could switch places again. Musk, Gates, luxury billionaire Bernard Arnault, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (who's ranked No. 1 with $182 billion net worth) are the only five centi-billionaires in Bloomberg Billionaires ranking of the world's richest people.
According to a report in Fortune, Elon Musk's wealth ranks have largely been driven by Tesla i.e., about three-quarters. His net worth is mostly comprised of Tesla shares that are valued more than four times his stake in SpaceX.
It is worth mentioning that Tesla stock prices surge about 500 per cent in 2020, Tesla has become the most valuable carmaker in the world, by far, despite production that is a fraction of rivals such as Japan's Toyota Motor and General Motors. Many market experts say share prices soared because investors have begun to feel more confident about the future of electric vehicles.
Bill Gates held the top ranking for years before being overtaken by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos in 2017. Bill Gates's net worth is $127.7 billion.
According to the Fortune report, it would have been much higher had he not made donations so prodigiously to charities. Since 2006, Bill Gates has given more than $27 billion to Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Elon Musk and Bill Gates have occasionally engaged in verbal spats. Recently, Elon Musk had ridiculed Bill Gates, saying the latter doesn't know about electric cars.
While responding to a question on Bill Gates's "declarations" on electric trucks, Elon Musk said, "He has no clue."
He has no clue
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 12, 2020
Way back in February, Bill Gates had said that he was not fond of Tesla cars and that he won't buy one. To which Elon Musk said, "My conversations with Gates have been underwhelming tbh."
Gates in a blog post in August on the future of mobility mentioned that the world should use clean electricity to run as many vehicles as possible, though he stated it "will probably never be a practical solution" for heavy, long-haul vehicles, cargo ships and passenger jets.
