Elon Musk could be on course to regain his title as the world’s richest person, after his net wealth has grown by US$45bn since the start of the year.
Musk has yo-yoed between the top spot in recent months, after he bought Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) for US$44bn in October, and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock fell drastically by 65% last year.
Tesla has since resurged nearly 92% this year, dragging Musk’s wealth, which is mostly tied into the electric vehicle giant, back towards Forbes rich list’s top spot.
On Friday Musk was valued at US$195bn, just US$15bn short of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (EPA:MC) owner Bernard Arnault, who boasts, alongside his family, US$210bn.
Tesla has marked a solid start to the year, eyeing expansions to production in both China and the US, after a strong set of full year results that saw it nearing a 50% growth in output and deliveries respectively.
Although Twitter continues to struggle with revenue losses, sparked by fleeing advertisers, and outages on the site most recently, Musk suggested this week it was on course to break even “if we keep at it,” writes the Telegraph.
This is likely owing to thousands of job cuts which has taken Twitter's workforce from 8,000 to 2,300 since Musk took charge.
Musk holds a 13% stake in Tesla, despite offloading some US$40bn worth of the stock last year to fund his Twitter exploit, with much of his value also tied into the social media company, as well as private space exploration firm SpaceX.