Elon Musk added $33.5 billion to his net worth on Thursday as Tesla Inc. shares posted their biggest gain in more than a decade, widening the world’s richest man’s lead atop the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Shares ended the day up 22% and turned positive for the year after the automaker reported its biggest quarterly profit since summer 2023. Musk forecast up to 30% growth in vehicle sales the next year in a post-launch webcast, announcing that Cybertruck generated quarterly profits for the first time.
The rise came after four straight quarters of disappointing profits for the world’s largest electric vehicle maker, which has struggled amid a slowdown in consumer demand.
Musk’s wealth increase was the third largest in his history and raised his fortune to $270.3 billion, $61 billion ahead of second place Jeff Bezos. Tesla stocks and options account for about three-quarters of his fortune, which also includes large stakes in SpaceX, social media platform X and artificial intelligence company xAI.
Musk, 53, has also been in the spotlight for his increasingly vocal (and expensive) support of Republican candidate Donald Trump. In recent weeks, he has campaigned in Pennsylvania alongside Trump and spent $75 million on his own super PAC, which has focused on funding Republican get-out-the-vote efforts and digital advertising.
Trump has said he would ask Musk to head a new department focused on minimizing bureaucracy, dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency, if he were elected to a second term.
In the webcast following the release of Tesla’s results, Musk said he would push for a federal approval process for autonomous vehicles if he were appointed to a position in a potential second Trump administration. Tesla is betting on autonomous vehicles as a key growth area. Musk said he expects Tesla to begin rolling out Cybercab robotaxis in 2026 and plans for the company to eventually produce between 2 million and 4 million units per year.
“My prediction is that Tesla will become the most valuable company in the world, probably by a long shot,” Musk said.
(With contributions from Bloomberg)
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