Elon Musk is richer than ever, and he has Donald Trump to thank for that

Elon Musk will not have regretted for a second that he sided with Donald Trump in the past presidential elections in America. Since Trump’s election victory, Musk – already dubbed the ‘first buddy’ by American media – has seen his wealth skyrocket. In the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the ranking of the 500 richest people on this planet, he ranks number one with a fortune of 348 billion dollars, a whopping 332 billion euros. (Read more below the box)

Since the beginning of this year, Musk has become $119 billion richer. But things have gone particularly fast in recent weeks: his wealth has increased by 35 percent since Trump’s election victory. Investors apparently count on the close ties between Trump and Musk to give the latter’s companies (including Tesla, X, SpaceX) a competitive advantage. For example, the share of Tesla, the maker of electric cars, has already risen 45 percent since the beginning of November, accounting for an additional $350 billion in market value. The new Trump administration would like to make looser rules for fully autonomous cars a priority. Something that Musk ‘coincidentally’ focuses heavily on with his self-driving taxi. xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up, has also attracted more interest from investors since Trump won the election.

If we (just for fun, because the comparison is a bit flawed) compare Elon Musk’s wealth against the gross domestic product – the national income – of the countries, Musk would be in 43rd place, leaving no fewer than 169 countries behind him out of a total of 212. My goodness…