NEW YORK -- The aftermath of the 2024 U.S. presidential election has been a boon to Elon Musk.
The richest person in the world got even richer Friday, with Musk’s net worth hitting a record US$347.8 billion, Bloomberg reported. That beats his previous record set in November 2021, when his net worth exceeded US$340 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Shares of Tesla have rallied since the Nov. 5 election and climbed 3.8 per cent on Friday. Since election day, the stock has risen about 40 per cent on investors' belief that Musk's influence in the Trump administration will usher in an era of deregulation that will benefit the company. Musk, Tesla’s largest individual shareholder, is roughly US$83 billion richer since election day, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
An alliance with President-elect Donald Trump has pushed Musk and his ventures to the forefront. Musk is the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as the owner of X and CEO of other ventures, including Neuralink, xAI and the Boring Company.
Now, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, he will oversee a new “Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE),” named after a memecoin.
Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, also more than doubled in value this week in a new funding round, surging to US$50 billion from a few months ago, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Musk has skyrocketed past his peers on the billionaire rankings, which often sees the top contenders swapping places. As of Tuesday, Musk was more than US$100 billion richer than the second richest person, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
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CNN’s Allison Morrow contributed to this report.
