When Elon Musk started the year, his net worth was a mere $28 billion. A quaint number, in retrospect. Quaint because in the last 8 months or so, Elon's net worth has increased by an astonishing $57 billion. The only human on the planet whose net worth has grown by a larger amount is Jeff Bezos. Jeff's net worth has increased by $73 billion. Combined, Elon and Jeff's net worths have swelled by $130 billion in 8 months. That's larger than Bill Gates' current net worth of $120 billion. In other words, Jeff and Elon have added an entire Bill Gates – PLUS $10 billion – to their respective fortunes in under a year.
And keep in mind, it wasn't that long ago that we were stunned to see one person's net worth top $100 billion. We now have three people in the world with a net worth over $100 billion (Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg) AND two humans are adding a previously-unimaginable amount of wealth to their coffers in less time than it takes to carry a baby to term.
Another astonishingly-unpredictable event happened in the last 24 hours. At some point last night or this morning, Elon Musk became the fourth-richest person on the planet for the first time. His $85 billion net worth topped the $83 billion net worth of French billionaire Bernard Arnault.
(ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
Bernard is a former member of the $100 billion-net-worth club. Bernard is the Chairman of luxury goods holding company LVMH Moët Hennessy. Bernard's net worth has dropped $21 billion year to date, likely as the world steps back from ultra-luxury goods. I mean, if you're out of a job, who needs Moët when you can buy a bottle of 2 Buck Chuck, right?
Here's your new top 4 richest people on the planet as of this morning:
