Musk Widens Richie-Rich Gap, Trolls Bezos

Elon Musk is pulling further ahead of Jeff Bezos as the world's richest man, and trolling all the way. Privately-held SpaceX saw its valuation rise to $100.3 billion this week as insiders agreed to sell up to $755 million in stock to new and existing investors at $560 per share, reports CNBC. That meant Musk’s personal wealth increased more than $10 billion, per CNN. It now stands at $224 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO celebrated by trolling the world's second-richest man and his space-race rival, Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, whose wealth stands at $189 billion.

In a Sunday tweet, Bezos pointed to a 1999 Barron's cover article that predicted Amazon would fail. "Don't let anybody tell you who you are … Today, Amazon is one of the world's most successful companies and has revolutionized two entirely different industries," he wrote. To that, Musk replied Monday with an emoji of a silver medal marked with the number two—which Mashable found "petty." Musk's SpaceX is now the world's second-most valuable private company behind China's Bytedance, owner of TikTok, per CNBC. Its current valuation represents a 33% increase over its February valuation of $74 billion. Tesla shares are climbing, too. They're up 13% year-to-date, following a rocky start to 2021, CNN reports. (More Elon Musk stories.)