Musk's fortune climbs $30 bn in a day over Tesla's record quarter

Elon Musk started 2022 with a bang.

Tesla reported it had smashed its previous record for vehicle deliveries, spurring a rally in the electric car-maker’s shares and creating one of the biggest one-day jumps in wealth.

Musk’s fortune jumped by $33.8 billion on Monday to $304.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Jeff Bezos, second on the list, has a $196 billion fortune.

Tesla’s shares rose 13.5 per cent to $1,199.78 on Monday after fourth-quarter results handily exceeded analysts’ estimates for auto deliveries. 

The company’s market valuation jumped back above $1 trillion after a dip in November and early December.

Musk, who owns about 18 per cent of Tesla, helped trigger the slide when he said he would reduce his stake in the company by 10 per cent. He’s sold more than $10 billion worth of shares since November, part of a plan to generate cash to pay tax obligations.

Musk’s net worth, which also includes his stake in rocket manufacturer SpaceX, reached a high of $340 billion last year, surpassing the peak inflation-adjusted net worth of John D Rockefeller and briefly making him the richest person in modern history.

Firm Under Fire For New Showroom In China's Xinjiang Area

Tesla’s announcement that it has opened a showroom in Xinjiang has attracted criticism from US rights and trade groups, making it the latest foreign firm caught up in tensions related to the far-western Chinese region.

Xinjiang has become a significant point of conflict between Western governments and China in recent years, as UN experts and rights groups estimate more than a million people, mainly Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities, have been detained in camps there.

The US electric car maker announced the showroom’s opening in Xinjiang’s regional capital, Urumqi, on its official Weibo account. “On the last day of 2021 we meet in Xinjiang,” it said. (Reuters)