Written by / Zhang Ou
Edited / Tu Yanping
Design / Shi Yuchao
Source/The Street/CNBC By Bernard Zambonin/Nicolas Vega
The new year has only just begun, and many of us may still be making a wish: Make me healthier, more diligent, and more determined! And the world's richest man has changed — he's gotten richer. Tesla CEO Elon Mask's net worth increased by $32.6 billion, bringing its wealth to $304.2 billion.
The highly topical billionaire, in addition to running Tesla, a leading electric vehicle company, is also the founder of the commercial space company SpaceX, and was named the 2021 Person of the Year by Time magazine.
The 10 richest people in the world
According to Bloomberg's billionaire index released at the end of 2021, their wealth is already elusive – just in 2021 alone, the world's top 10 richest people received a total of $402 billion. They are all worth more than $100 billion.
Musk, the world's richest man, has earned nearly $118 billion in the past 12 months;
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has not increased his net worth as much as Musk, but he has still earned $5 billion in the past year and is worth $195 billion;
Bernard Arnault, CEO of luxury group LVMH, which owns brands such as Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Givenchy, has increased his net worth by $61 billion and made a net worth of $176 billion in 2021;
The other seven, in turn, microsoft's Bill Gates, Google's founder Larry Page, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's other founder, Sergey Brin, NBA Los Angeles Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and Oracle chairman Larry Ballmer. Larry Ellison and Warren Buffett.
Jeff Bezos
Bernard Arnott
Make the rich rich richer
Time and again, Wall Street shrugged off concerns about inflation, supply chain bottlenecks and coronavirus variants, keeping the stock market alive.
In this regard, the wealthy should pay homage to the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, which pours tens of billions of dollars a month into financial markets while keeping interest rates close to zero — an ultra-accommodative monetary policy designed to keep cash flowing in financial markets given the shock of the pandemic to the global economy in 2020.
The S&P 500 was up nearly 27 percent, the Dow Jones was up about 19 percent, and the Nasdaq was up 21 percent at the end of the year.
Valuations of other assets such as cryptocurrencies, commodities and real estate have also soared, further strengthening the coffers of the super-rich.
The combined net worth of 500 people in bloomberg's billionaire index now exceeds $8.4 trillion. That's more than the gross domestic product of any country on the planet except the United States and China.
Tesla's stock price soared
Tesla's soaring stock price is the reason for the increase in wealth.
Tesla delivered 308,600 vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2021, more than analysts expected 267,000 vehicles. Year-end deliveries were 936,172 units, up 87 percent from 2020 and outpacing Wall Street's forecast of 897,000 units for the year.
That sent Tesla's stock soaring nearly 13.5 percent to $1,199.78 a share on Monday and adding $144 billion to Tesla's market capitalization. As Tesla's CEO, Musk owns about 15.6 percent of the company's stock.
Musk made a huge splash last November as he dumped billions of Tesla stocks, a move he allegedly made up for a poll he posted on Twitter. He has sold $16.4 billion worth of stock.
Musk sold a total of 15.7 million shares of Tesla stock late last year, about 10 percent of the stake the billionaire promised to sell.
One analyst called Tesla's stock performance jaw-dropping, especially when the auto industry is still in chip shortages and other supply chain problems.
According to Business Insider, Tesla's stock reached a $1 trillion valuation for the first time in October as Hertz announced an order for 100,000 Model 3 electric vehicles, bringing Musk's fortune to $340 billion.
However, Tesla's stock fell in November as Musk sold a 10 percent stake to pay $11 billion in taxes. The stock rebounded in December, remaining above $1 trillion.
The tax also makes him one of the largest individual taxpayers in U.S. history, though it's only about 0.0036 percent of his worth.
Wall Street analysts remain bullish on Tesla's prospects for the new year:
First, Tesla's high valuation is reasonable
Tesla's market capitalization is more than $1 trillion. The core criterion for judging this value is the technology it provides.
It is currently one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world, trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of up to 360 times, which is 5 times more than Amazon, which ranks No. 2.
We also mentioned above that Tesla will deliver 936,172 vehicles for the full year of 2021, and for 2022, the company expects to deliver 1.3 million vehicles. That shouldn't be a problem for Tesla, especially with its gigabit factories in Texas and Germany coming online. The company is expected to produce 10 million vehicles in 2025.
Second, musk factor
In a market driven by highly speculative assets such as cryptocurrencies, unforgotten tokens (NFTs), special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), and other disruptive technology trends, investors often seem willing to ignore fundamentals and focus on the big potential.
For better or worse, as the richest man on the planet, Musk's voice has had a big impact on the market. His tweets on social networking sites can often cause huge waves.
Third, Tesla is still the most important 10,000 in the electric vehicle market
At present, when we talk about electric vehicles produced around the world, Tesla is still a major player. The company has a market share of 15%, followed by Volkswagen and General Motors.
In 2021, the size of the electric vehicle industry is $287 billion. Third-party research firms expect this size to grow to $1.3 trillion by 2028, an impressive compound annual growth rate of 24 percent.
Despite fierce competitors from Rivian, Lucid, and others, Tesla will remain the biggest player in the industry and a major beneficiary of the industry's growth, at least in the short term, thanks to its cutting-edge technology and customer loyalty.