Step aside, Jeff Bezos. There is officially a new richest person on the planet. And that person is none other than Elon Musk!

Musk, 49, now has a net worth (184 billion USD)  which helped him surpass Bezo’s mark, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The news comes as shares of Tesla, of which Musk is the co-founder and CEO, continue to surge in 2021, following a precipitous run in 2020 that saw the value of the company rise by more than 700%. An outspoken entrepreneur, Elon had a humble beginning when he had designed a video-game blastar in his teen years. Later, he had founded Paypal.  He had sold off Paypal and had used the proceeds of the sale to invest in Tesla and to found SpaceX.  The walking-talking ‘out of the world’ renewables and rocket-science nerd had been known to sleep in his workspace and taking ahead SpaceX despite its numerous failures.

Also Read: Marvels of Elon Musk

Musk responded on Twitter to the news of his becoming the richest person now in the world in a truly modest and humble way. He tweeted “how strange” and that it was time to get “back to work.” He also pinned a tweet to his account from October 2018, noting that half of his money is to help problems on Earth and the other half will go towards establishing a self-sustaining city on Mars. When SpaceX, which was trashed earlier by the likes of Eugene Cernan, successfully launched the Falcon Heavy throwing a Tesla Roadster into space, the world witnessed the crazy genius of South-Africa born Elon who showed that a private Space rocket firm can work successfully by vertical integration.

Shares of Tesla gained 4.7% to $791.39, while Amazon shares tacked on 1.7% to trade at $3,190.03. The two tech chieftains compete primarily in the space exploration business, where Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’ Blue Origin compete for government contracts, media and investor attention.

However, much of Musk’s net worth is attributed to Tesla and not SpaceX, though SpaceX is valued at approximately $49 billion. The company is also looking to raise new funds as it grows its rocket business and its Internet satellite segment.

Shares of Tesla have surged over the past 12 months, putting the company’s market cap over $750 billion, compared to Amazon’s $1.6 trillion. But, some analysts on Wall Street believe that there is more room to run for the stock.

In a note to investors early this week, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, who has a $715 price target on shares of Tesla, believes that the shares could hit $1,000 in a “bull-case” scenario, particularly if the company can hit 1 million delivery units by 2022, assuming China remains a hot market for electric vehicles.

“We believe that the China growth story is worth at least $100 per share in a bull case to Tesla as this EV penetration is set to ramp significantly over the next 12 to 18 months, along with major battery innovations coming out of Giga 3,” Ives wrote in the note. He also added, “In a nutshell, we believe EV demand in China is starting to accelerate with Tesla competing with a number of domestic and international competitors for market share with Giga 3 remaining the linchpin of success which remains the prize that Musk and Tesla are laser-focused on capturing.”

The Net-worth of Musk was USD 188.5 billion (NY, 10:15 am), at USD 1.5 billion more than Jeff Bezos, who had held the top spot since October 2017. An interesting aspect of the difference is that this USD 1.5 billion is double the amount Tesla had made in aggregate revenues since Musk had taken the delivery of the first Roadster in 2008.

Generally, as a rule of the game it is said that the democracies get the leaders they deserve, but, here, in this case, the investors got the market. The renewable energy & EV nerd working on Gigascale, researching an AI which would benefit mankind, and aiming to build a city on Mars has become the richest person by virtue of serving the greater good relentlessly.