It’s been quite the day for Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk.
The early-morning announcement that Hertz intends to buy 100,000 Teslas for its rental fleet kicked off a spectacular rally that sent the company’s market capitalization and its top executive’s net worth soaring to new heights.
Tesla’s share price surged nearly 13% on Monday, bringing the automaker’s market cap to just over $1 trillion for the first time. Musk ended the day $36.2 billion richer in the largest single-day gain that Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index has ever recorded.
Bloomberg now estimates Musk’s net worth at $288.6 billion. His wealth has now eclipsed Toyota’s $282 billion market value. He’s also worth significantly more than Tesla rivals like General Motors ($83.9 billion) and Ford ($62.8 billion).
Musk owns roughly 20% of Tesla, and that stake is the primary driver of his wealth, which also funds ventures like the Boring Company and SpaceX. The eccentric CEO receives vast amounts of stock options from a complex pay package that pays out when Tesla reaches certain financial milestones. Musk gained $8 billion in wealth on Monday after Tesla announced that he had unlocked a new batch of stock, according to Bloomberg.
Musk first passed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the world’s wealthiest person in January. They’ve traded places a few times since. Now Musk has cemented a nearly $100 billion lead over Bezos, whose fortune was a paltry $192.6 billion at market close, Bloomberg estimates.
