Elon Musk Becomes Richest Man; Here's How He Feels About It

Elon Musk became the richest person on the planet on Thursday, with a net worth of about $191 billion. He took the top spot from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had held it since 2017.

While Musk's net worth had been tailing that of Jeff Bezos for long, the 6% rise in Tesla (TSLA) shares early Thursday secured him the top spot. Musk is also the primary shareholder and CEO of SpaceX, though SpaceX is privately held, so its value does not fluctuate as much as the value of Tesla. To name all his business ventures, he is the founder, CEO, CTO, and chief designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI.

Musk, who is also popular for his controversial tweets, responded to the news in a peculiar way, replying to a Twitter user sharing the news with the remark "how strange".

Elon Musk once said in an earlier Tweet that Tesla was just a month away from bankruptcy while it ramped up production of the Model 3. "Tesla was just one month from bankruptcy as it ramped up production of the Model 3 electric vehicle between mid-2017 and mid-2019," CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Nov 4, 2020.

Tesla was also just three days from bankruptcy in 2008 when Musk had plowed all his money into the company "even though I thought we would still fail." It was saved by a last-minute investment, he said.

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

"About half my money is intended to help problems on Earth, and a half to help establish a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure the 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.

Of course, this was followed by a sarcastic comment that Musk is the richest person on the planet who wants to leave the planet.