Elon Musk overtakes Bezos to be world's richest person

Elon Musk has become the world's richest person, as his net worth crossed $185 billion (£136bn).

The Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur was pushed into the top slot after Tesla's share price increased on Thursday.

He takes the top spot from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had held it since 2017.

Mr Musk's electric car company Tesla has surged in value this year, and hit a market value of $700bn (£516bn) for the first time on Wednesday.

That makes the car company worth more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, GM and Ford combined.

Mr Musk reacted to the news in signature style, replying to a Twitter user sharing the news with the remark "how strange".

An older tweet pinned to the top of his feed offered further insight into his thoughts on personal wealth.

"About half my money is intended to help problems on Earth, and half to help establish a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure continuation of life (of all species) in case Earth gets hit by a meteor like the dinosaurs or WW3 happens and we destroy ourselves," it reads,

The tycoon's fortunes have been buoyed by politics in the US, where the Democrats will have control of the US Senate in the forthcoming session.

Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities wrote: "A Blue Senate is bullish for the [electric vehicle] sector, with a more green-driven agenda now certainly in the cards for the next few years."

Expected electric vehicle tax credits would benefit Tesla, "which continues to have an iron grip on the market today", he added.

Mr Bezos has also seen his fortunes rise over the past year thanks to Amazon seeing stronger sales as a result of the coronavirus driving demand for its online store and cloud computing services.

However, he gave a 4 percent stake in the business to his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott after they split, which helped Mr Musk overtake him.

The title of world’s richest caps an extraordinary run for Musk and Tesla, even during a pandemic when the world’s economy grounded to a halt, with record lines outside food banks and elevated unemployment.

Musk was criticized for repeated attempts to keep Tesla’s plant open and then for bringing workers back onto the line as Covid-19 raged, and cases were even reported inside Tesla’s facilities.

It marks an unlikely turnaround for Mr Musk. Just 18 months ago, Tesla’s stock appeared to have bottomed out on the heels of legal and regulatory fears, as well as concerns about Musk’s leadership.

By 2019 Tesla faced concerns over demand, mounting losses and a shortage of cash — and its stock dropped to a near-term low around June 2019.

But last year, the stock rose steadily — then meteorically — as the company posted consecutive quarters of profits and appeared to prove the viability and demand for electric cars.

Analysts warned the stock could be valued too highly as Tesla took the title of the world’s most valuable automotive company.