AMAZON Founder Jeff Bezos is back as the world’s richest person after Tesla shares fell, resulting in a slight erosion in Elon Musk’ wealth. Tesla shares were down 2.4 per cent on Tuesday and Musk lost $4.6 billion, slipping to the second position on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people. Bezos returned as the world’s richest man with a net worth of $191.2 billion. Last month, Musk became the world’s richest person, as his net worth crossed $185 billion after Tesla’s share price increased. He took the top spot from Bezos, who had held it since 2017.

 

Tesla has surged in value this year, and hit a market value of $700 billion last month, making the electric car maker worth more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, GM and Ford combined. Musk’s net worth increased by more than $150 billion and Tesla’s share price surged a massive 743 per cent last year. Tesla last week announced it has invested $1.5 bn in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The announcement led to a surge in the price of one Bitcoin, that has even surpassed $50,000 per coin. Tesla said it will also “begin accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future.”