SpaceX founder and chief executive officer Elon Musk is now the richest person globally with a net worth of over $185 billion, leapfrogging Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, worth $184 billion.

According to media reports, Elon Musk’s rise to the first spot is largely due to the significant rise of his company Tesla's stock price.

Bezos has been the world’s richest person since 2017

Musk was worth about $27 billion at the beginning of 2020. His rise and the growth of his company has been surprisingly speedy. CNBC reported that his rise is the fastest anyone has risen to stay at the top.

"Musk's wealth surge over the past year marks the fastest rise to the top of the rich list in history,” CNBC reported.

Last July, Elon Musk overtook Warren Buffet as the 7th richest person in the world. Five months later, he has leapfrogged 6 other persons ahead of him to take the first spot.

Musk had earned more money within the past 12 months than Bill Gate’s entire net worth of $132 billion to put things in the right perspective.

The skyrocketing share price of Tesla has been the major reason for its rise, as the price has increased more than 900% over the past year. His generous pay package is another reason why his net worth has increased tremendously over the past 12 months.

Additional Income from SpaceX

SpaceX is another company owned by Elon Musk, which has also done well in the market. However, unlike Tesla, SpaceX is not a publicly-traded company. Last year, the company delivered two crewed missions to the International Space Station. This makes it the only time orbit human spaceflight is lifted from the U.S. since NASA stopped its space shuttle in 2021.

Interestingly, SpaceX went on 26 spaceship missions in 2020, which has been the highest ever launched in a single year.

Apart from its interest in space, SpaceX also made important improvements in Starship development; a transport system developed to transport people to Mars, Moon, and other possible space destinations.

Musk has always maintained that his main goal for starting SpaceX is to help humanity colonize mass. He funded the project in 2012 and planned to set aside a large part of his wealth on the project.

Musk and Bezos are having similar ideas when it comes to nature and the environment. Both of them maintained that reusable spaceflight systems are vital for achieving an ideal environment for humanity.

However, both of them have traded jabs about each other’s reusable milestones and systems in the past.

While the business environment has remained favorable for Tesla despite the pandemic situation in 2020, Bezos’s Amazon has been subdued due to the imminent increase in the regulatory laws in the U.S.

It’s expected that Musk will add more wealth from the current projection and maintain the present position for a long time.