American businessman Elon Musk, whose fortune has increased by almost $120bn over the past year, has broken his own record and topped Bloomberg’s list of the world’s richest people.
The day before, his fortune reached a historic high of $347.8 billion, while the previous record was $340.4 billion, which was also set by Musk in November 2021. For example, the state of the closest pursuer of the businessman – the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos – $219 billion.
The growth of Musk’s wealth has continued since Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election. Musk was one of the few major businessmen who publicly supported the Republican candidate.
Since November 4, the growth of Tesla Inc shares was about 45%, adding about $350 billion to the market value (as of February, Musk had 20.5% of the company’s shares). In addition, the agency writes, the new round of financing increased the value of his startup in the field of artificial intelligence xAI to $50 billion.
The increase in the value of Musk’s shares may be due to the fact that Trump has previously advocated the cancellation of tax credits for electric cars up to $7500 and the reduction of emission standards, which were introduced by the administration of President Joe Biden. That would be very damaging to traditional automakers, whose sales are more dependent on federal support than Tesla’s.
Musk supported Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential election. The entrepreneur donated more than $170 million to a political action committee in support of the Republican candidate, appeared at pro-Trump rallies and campaigned for the former president in swing states.
After winning the election, Trump appointed Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to head the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The future president called the new department “the “Manhattan Project” of our time” (as part of this project, the US created the atomic bomb in the mid-20th century).
Musk, in turn, said that the work of the new department “will cause a shock in the system and all those involved in the waste of public funds,” adding that there are “a lot of such people.” He also announced the reduction of some civil servants and international grants allocated to the US.
