Datastream
Elon Musk is the World’s Richest Person in 2021
The Briefing
- Just six days into the new year, Elon Musk became the world’s richest person in 2021
- His personal fortune is $188 billion, up 548% from one year ago
- Tesla shares are up 1,030% since the market bottom in 2020
- Elon Musk’s rocketing net worth may be the fastest accumulation of wealth in history
Elon Musk is the World’s Richest Person in 2021
2021 has been touted as a year of change.
And as far the pecking order of global wealth goes, the new year has already delivered. Just six days in, Elon Musk had already lapped Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person in 2021 with a personal net worth of $188 billion.
How did this happen so fast?
Since the stock market bottom in March 2020, Tesla shares have skyrocketed by 1,030% to $816 per share. Elon Musk happens to own about 241 million of those shares, putting his wealth accumulation into overdrive in a short period of time.
Pedal to the Medal
The boom in wealth has been so prolific for Musk that he’s left other billionaires in the dust.
One year ago, he wouldn’t have cracked the top 20 list—but with a surge in wealth of 548% since a year ago, he now sits at the top of the heat as the world’s richest person.
| Rank | Billionaire | Wealth (Jan 6, 2021) | One-Year Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | 🇺🇸 Elon Musk | $188 billion | 548% |
| #2 | 🇺🇸 Jeff Bezos | $184 billion | 57% |
| #3 | 🇺🇸 Bill Gates | $132 billion | 45% |
| #4 | 🇫🇷 Bernard Arnault | $114 billion | 8% |
| #5 | 🇺🇸 Mark Zuckerberg | $100 billion | 23% |
| #6 | 🇨🇳 Zhong Shanshan | $93 billion | n/a |
| #7 | 🇺🇸 Warren Buffett | $87 billion | -2% |
| #8 | 🇺🇸 Larry Page | $82 billion | 22% |
| #9 | 🇺🇸 Sergey Brin | $79 billion | 22% |
| #10 | 🇺🇸 Larry Ellison | $79 billion | 32% |
Is this a temporary bump, or will Elon Musk stay atop the world’s richest person rankings for the rest of 2021?
Really, it all depends on Tesla’s stock price performance—and those that have bet against Tesla in recent years don’t have a great track record to lean on.
That said, price swings can happen in either direction, and if Tesla’s stock finds itself coming down to Earth, it’s possible that Musk’s ranking in the billionaire pecking order could tumble down with it.
>> Liked this? See how Elon Musk built his empire
Where does this data come from?
Source: Bloomberg Billionaire Index
Details: Jan 6th, 2021 data
Notes: Net worth figures on the tracker get updated frequently, so any up-to-date data may not match that of this article.
Datastream
Charted: The Ukraine War Civilian Death Toll
Using data from the UN, this chart shows civilian death toll figures resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Briefing
- In total, since the war began in February there have been over 7,031 Ukrainian civilian deaths
- Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons, such as missiles and heavy artillery
Charted: The Ukraine War Civilian Death Toll
Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has wrought suffering and death on a mass scale, with many Russian attacks targeted at civilians.
We’ve created this visual using data from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to better understand how many civilians have died in Ukraine as a result of the war, as well as how many were injured and how many were children.
The Numbers
As of early December, it is reported that 7,031 people in Ukraine have died because of the war — 433 of them children. Another 11,327 have been injured, 827 of which are children. In total, this is over 18,000 people killed or injured.
The figures are difficult to verify due to differing reports coming out of both Russia and Ukraine. The UN OHCHR anticipates that the numbers could be even higher.
The State of the Conflict
The war began on February 24th, 2022 and less than a year in, millions of people have been displaced by the conflict, and thousands of civilians have been injured or killed.
According to the UN, most of the civilian deaths have been caused by wide-ranging explosives such as heavy artillery shelling, missiles, and air strikes, and have been concentrated in Donetsk and Luhansk and in other territory still held by Ukraine.
Additionally, new estimates from Kyiv report approximately 13,000 Ukrainian military or soldier deaths, which has yet to be confirmed by the army.
Where does this data come from?
Source: The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights monthly reports on civilian deaths in Ukraine.
Note: Data on deaths and injuries can vary wildly depending on the source.
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