Elon Musk overtakes Bill Gates to grab world’s second-richest ranking

Elon Musk, the co-founder of Tesla Inc, has passed Microsoft Corp Co-Founder Bill Gates to become the world's second-richest person.

The 49-year-old entrepreneur's wealth ranks have advanced largely by Tesla, whose market value is approaching $500 billion, reports Bloomberg.

Musk's net worth is $127.9 billion, while Bill Gates's net worth is $127.7 billion. 

However, Bill Gates's net worth would be much higher if he not donated so prodigiously to charity over the years. Gates has given more than $27 billion to his namesake foundation since 2006.

Musk has added $100.3 billion, which was $7.2 billion earlier, to his net worth this year, the most of anyone on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world's 500 wealthiest people.

About three-quarters of his net worth comprises Tesla shares, which are valued more than four times as much as his stake in Space Exploration Technologies Corp, or SpaceX. 

Musk's milestone marks only the second time in the index's eight-year history that Gates has ranked lower than number two. He held the top spot for years before being bumped by Amazon.com Inc Founder Jeff Bezos in 2017.

With Monday's move, Musk unseats an occasional verbal sparring partner in Gates, who the Tesla billionaire has ridiculed on Twitter for, among other things, having "no clue" about electric trucks. The two have also traded barbs over Covid-19.

Gates, whose charitable foundation is one of the preeminent bodies backing vaccine research, has expressed concern over Musk's stated suspicion of pandemic data and embracing certain conspiracy theories.

The year has been a lucrative one for the world's richest people. Despite the pandemic and widespread layoffs that have disproportionately affected the world's working class and poor, the Bloomberg index members have collectively gained 23% -- or $1.3 trillion -- since the year began.