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The breathtaking rally of the US electric car manufacturer Tesla on the stock exchange made company boss Elon Musk the richest person in the world according to the billionaire ranking "Bloomberg Billionaires Index".
After the electric car maker rose 4.8 percent on Thursday, Musk overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in the world's 500 richest people.
The net worth of the South African-born engineer was $ 188.5 billion (€ 153.7 billion) on Thursday at 10.15 a.m. New York time.
That's $ 1.5 billion more than the fortunes of Bezos, who held the top spot since October 2017.
As Chief Executive Officer of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
(SpaceX) Musk is also rivaling Bezos, the owner of Blue Origin LLC, in the private race for space travel.
The milestone is the culmination of twelve extraordinary months for Musk (49).
Last year, his net worth grew more than $ 150 billion in what was possibly the fastest wealth creation in history.
Its rise was fueled by an unprecedented rally in Tesla's stock price, which rose 743 percent over the past twelve months on the back of steady gains, inclusion in the S&P 500 index and buzz from Wall Street and retail investors alike.
Despite still very little production and only modest profits, the company has long been by far the most highly traded car manufacturer in the world.
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Both Musk and Bezos, as major shareholders of their companies, benefit greatly from their good performance on the stock exchange.
It was only in November that Musk overtook third-placed Bill Gates in the Bloomberg ranking.
Last year, the 500 richest people in the world increased their total net worth by a record $ 1.8 trillion, an increase of 31 percent.
Profits were disproportionately high at the top, with five people each having net worth more than $ 100 billion and another 20 having at least $ 50 billion.
However, the figures in billionaire charts such as the “Bloomberg Billionaires Index” or the “Forbes” lists are only estimates based on publicly available information about assets such as stocks, real estate, works of art and other luxury goods.
The estimates are partly controversial.
In the “Forbes Billionaires List”, Musk ranked second with a fortune of 173.2 billion dollars - well behind Bezos, who brought it there to 185.9 billion.