Elon Musk Kickstarts 2022 With $33.8 Billion Gain

The world’s richest man and CEO of Tesla Inc, Elon Musk has already made $33.8 billion this year, according to the latest Bloomberg Billionaire Index.

Musk’s total net worth rose by $33.8 billion to $304 billion on the back of soaring Tesla stock on Monday while Tesla’s total market value jumped by $144 billion.

Elon Musk’s net worth rose with an increase in the value of Tesla stock after the electric-vehicle manufacturer announced that it delivered 308,600 vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2021, beating analysts’ expectations. Tesla produced 305,840 electric vehicles in the fourth quarter, and for the whole of 2021, Tesla delivered 936,172 vehicles, an increase of 87 percent when compared to 2020.

Tesla stock responded positively with price growing by $143 or 14 percent to $1,199.78 a unit to push the company’s market capitalisation to $1.205 trillion.

Presently, Musk holds 177,032,165 Tesla shares, which at the current price is worth $209.478 billion even after selling shares estimated at $16 billion to offset his taxes.

Tesla is now the fifth-most valuable U.S company behind $1.729 trillion Amazon.com Inc and ahead of $943.17 billion Facebook, Meta Platforms Inc.

Emmanuel Rosner of Deutsche Bank and other Tesla bearish analysts have started raising their projections. Rosner adjusted his price target to $1,200 from $1,000, describing Tesla delivery data as impressive.

Ryan Brinkman, lead automotive equity Research analyst at J.P. Morgan, who has been bearish on Tesla stock for years also raised his target by 18 percent to $295 a unit, saying the delivery numbers easily exceeded his projection. Still, his new target is still 75 percent below current levels.

“While our higher price target continues to imply large downside, we continue to believe it is not ungenerous, including that it values Tesla as the world’s most valuable automaker,” edging out Toyota Motor Corp. TM, 8.05 percent, even though Toyota is the world’s largest automaker by unit volume and Tesla ranks 20th.