Tesla's chief executive officer, Elon Musk, just overtook Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett to become the world's seventh-richest person on Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. Musk's net worth shot up once again after Tesla's stock prices surged by 10.8 percent on Friday last week to a record $1,544 per share.
The latest surge in the company's stock sent its market valuation to about $286.5 billion. This in turn added about $6.1 billion to Musk's net worth, pushing him ahead of the billionaire's list and passed Buffett, who donated close to $3 billion worth of his Berkshire Hathaway shares to charity.
Musk currently owns around a fifth of Tesla's outstanding stocks, which makes up a huge chunk of the 49-year-old entrepreneur's $70.5 billion net worth. The rest of his fortune comes from his stocks of his space company SpaceX, which is worth around $15 billion.
Since the start of the year, Tesla's share prices have risen by more than 269 percent. This was partly due to the continued sales success of the company's fully-electric vehicles, particularly in the Chinese market. The most recent surges have also made the company the world's most valuable automotive firm.
Tesla recently opened its new Gigafactory in Shanghai, which is churning out Model 3 electric models for Chinese consumers. The surge in the company's stocks and performance resulted in Musk receiving a massive $595 million bonus, making him the country's highest-paid CEO.
Analysts have warned that the surge in Tesla's stocks and other tech-related stocks may be temporary. Some have even called the surge in Tesla's stocks as a potential bubble that will eventually burst. Given the current slow economic recovery, it apparently makes no sense for tech stocks to continue hitting new highs every day, which means that all of the new investments are likely from speculators.
Due to Buffett's donations and the relatively poor performance of his latest investments, several other billionaires were able to overtake the so-called Oracle of Omaha in recent weeks. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer and Google's Larry Page both had overtaken Buffet. Just this week, India's telecom tycoon Mukesh Ambani managed to overtake Buffett.
Buffett's net worth dropped by about $2.9 billion last week after he made a substantial donation to charity. Since 2016, Buffett has given away more than $37 billion of his wealth to charities and non-profit organizations.
Overtaking Buffett is likely a big win for Musk, who had openly stated that he wasn't a big fan of how Buffett's work. In turn, Buffett had mentioned that he thinks Musk was a "remarkable guy" but that he needed improvement in his behavior as being a CEO. Buffett was indirectly referring to Musk's continued Tweets, which have caused several controversies.
