New York (CNN Business) – How crazy rich is Elon Musk?
The Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX CEO’s net worth is now about a stratospheric $300 billion, according to Forbes’ real time rankings of the world’s wealthiest people.
That means the 50-year-old Musk has a more than a $100 billion lead over second place Jeff Bezos, the Amazon (AMZN) founder and owner of Musk’s space rival Blue Origin.
The superlatives don’t stop there. Musk, the newest board member of Twitter (TWTR), is worth more than double the wealth of legendary investor and Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) CEO Warren Buffett, who started investing in 1941 when he was 11. The 91-year old Oracle of Omaha’s net worth now stands at “only” about $125 billion.
Musk is also worth significantly more than the combined fortunes of former Microsoft (MSFT) CEOs Bill Gates ($136 billion) and Steve Ballmer ($100 billion.) Ditto for Google (GOOGL) co-founders Larry Page ($120 billion) and Sergey Brin ($115 billion.)
Is Musk a sports fan? He could buy all 32 National Football League teams (currently worth more than $112 billion, according to data site Sportico) and still have almost $190 billion left over.
And Musk is worth only about $35 billion less than the gross domestic product of his native South Africa, whose GDP is $335 billion, according to the World Bank. Musk’s net worth exceeds the GDPs of Colombia, FInland. Pakistan, Chile and Portugal.
Musk is clearly in uncharted territory when it comes to wealth. He is the richest person ever, according to Forbes.
Still, some historical experts argue that other American industrialists from the 19th and 20th centuries, such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, as well as monarchs and rulers like Mansa Musa of the 13th century Mali Empire and Augustus Caesar — who reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14 — may have had more wealth when adjusting for inflation.
