Elon Musk has just become the world’s richest person and knocked out fellow space magnate Jeff Bezos from the top spot.
The SpaceX founder and CEO is now worth more than $ 185 billion, thanks to the continued rise in the share price of his company Tesla, according to media reports. Bezos, which manages Amazon.com as well as the aerospace equipment Blue origin, is currently worth $ 184 billion, according to CNBC.
Bezos has held the world’s richest title since 2017.
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Musk starts 2020 worth $ 27 billion, and then maintains its pocketbook during the year in a historic way, reports CNBC.
Musk’s rise in wealth over the past year is the fastest rise in the richest list in history – and it’s a dramatic financial turnaround for the famous entrepreneur, who was in the news just 18 months ago for Tesla’s rapid cash burn and its personal leverage. against the company’s share, ” CNBC wrote. “Tesla’s rising share price – which has increased more than ninefold over the past year – coupled with its generous pay package, has added its net worth to more than $ 150 billion.”
SpaceX, which, unlike Tesla, is not a stock exchange – also had a great 2020. For example, last year SpaceX launched two missions to the International Space Station, the first human spacecraft to fly away from the US since NASA retired its space fleet in 2011.
In all, SpaceX launched 26 missions in 2020, most of which still offered it in a calendar year. The company also made great progress in the development of Starship, the transportation system it develops to take people to the moon, Mars and beyond.
Musk has long said that he founded SpaceX in 2002, primarily to help humanity colonize Mars – and that he plans to devote much of his growing wealth to making it happen.
‘About half of my money is meant to help problems on Earth and half to help establish a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure the survival of life (of all kinds) in the event of the earth being hit by a meteor like the dinosaurs or WW3, and we destroy ourselves, “Musk wrote in a tweet of 2018, which he recently pinned to the top of his Twitter account.
Bezos also wants to help humanity expand its footprint to the final frontier.
“Blue Origin believes that in order to preserve the earth, our home, for our grandchildren’s grandchildren, we must go to space to use the unlimited resources and energy,” the company’s mission statement reads, in part. “As the Industrial Revolution made way for trade, economic abundance, new communities and high-speed transportation – our path to space opens the door to the infinite and yet unimaginable future generations.”
Musk and Bezos both emphasize that reusable spacecraft systems are the key to achieving such great ambitions. The two billionaires have trade jabs about each other’s systems and milestones for reusability in the past, so that competitive feelings evoked by Musk’s rise to the top billionaire position would not be entirely new.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.