Elon Musk Passes Mark Zuckerberg, Closing in on Bill Gates Net Worth

It's been a busy week for Elon Musk and Tesla stock after it was announced that the latter would be added to the S&P 500 index. On just Tuesday and Wednesday alone, Tesla stock jumped from $408.09 to $486.64 per share, a gain of 19.2 percent. This week, Musk passed Mark Zuckerberg to become the third richest person in the world, and he's about $8 billion short of Bill Gates for second. Jeff Bezos is atop the list at $183 billion.

According to the Bloomberg billionaires index, Musk is now worth $120 billion and Gates is worth $128 billion. Before the S&P 500 news, Musk was worth about $103 billion. Since this past January alone, Musk's net worth has appreciated by over $92 billion.

There are a couple of caveats to the idea of Musk passing Gates. First, Gates has given away a ton of his money to philanthropic ventures over the decades. If this were not the case, Musk would not be closing in on him, and Gates would quite conceivably be a considerable distance ahead of Bezos as well.

In my opinion there's a lot more risk in the volatility of Tesla stock than Microsoft. I'll admit that I've been way wrong on Tesla stock in the past. I thought it was an unsustainable bubble for a couple years as it's kept skyrocketing. This is why I don't short stocks. If you are wrong on a stock you buy, the worst loss exposure is 100 percent. If you are wrong on a stock you short, there is an unlimited downside. Since May 1, 2019, Tesla stock has gone up over 1,300 percent.