Elon Musk nears world’s richest title again

Billionaire Elon Musk is inching closer to reclaiming his title as the world’s richest person since being overtaken by Bernard Arnault in December, thanks to Tesla Inc’s 70% surge this year.

It may take a little longer for Musk to overtake the French luxury-goods titan, however, after disclosing this week he gave away 11.6 million Tesla shares to unnamed charitable causes between August and December.

The stock was valued at approximately $2.4 billion, based on average prices on the day Musk donated the securities.

The disclosure comes as Musk, 51, narrows the gap to Arnault to less than $10 billion amid signs of growing demand for Tesla’s electric vehicles.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he is now worth about $184 billion after his latest donation.

That’s down from a peak of more than $300 billion in late 2021 before it decided to buy Twitter in a leveraged buyout near the peak of the tech market, but up from nearly $50 billion this year.

Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer and largest individual shareholder, had previously donated about $6 billion in shares in the company in 2021, which at the time was one of the largest philanthropic donations in history.

The recipient of the donation was later revealed to be the Musk Foundation, which recently funded education and carbon sequestration projects in the area around Brownsville, Texas, as well as nonprofits close to its SpaceX spaceport.

Most of Musk’s wealth is still tied up in Tesla stock, although SpaceX has made up a sizable portion in recent years.

Musk sold more than $20 billion worth of Tesla shares last year as he tried to shore up his buyout of Twitter.

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Information Source: TimesofIndia

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