Elon Musk is now so rich that he can fund South Africa for three years and Nigeria combine

The world has been on a rollercoaster of shock as the personal fortune of the South African born Tesla CEO and SpaceX entrepreneur Elon Musk hit the equivalent of R4.25 trillion.

According to Business Insider, Musk was worth a mere R3.7 trillion after a surge in the share price of electric car company Tesla, in which he holds a large stake. But when car rental company Hertz placed the single largest order ever for electric vehicles, Tesla’s share price went wild, valuing the company at above $1 trillion.

No doubt, only a few companies have hit that mark, and only Facebook has done it faster. While Tesla went from founding to $1 trillion in 18 years, it took Amazon 24 years, Apple 44 years, and Microsoft 46 years.

To Elon Musk, that meant the largest one-day gain ever recorded in the authoritative Bloomberg index of the richest people: $36 billion added to his net worth on Monday.

Currently, at $288.6 billion, Elon Musk is personally worth more than Toyota. He could also buy the top 20 companies in South Africa is country without tapping the last of his reserves.

But his wealth is so astronomical that it is better expressed in terms of, say, South Africa’s national budget.

Musk has said he is gathering personal wealth in order to fund his ultimate mission: ensuring the safety of the human race by making life multi-planetary, through the colonisation of Mars.

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