The world's richest person just got even richer - Elon Musk is quarter-way to becoming a trillionaire, once more

• Elon Musk's net worth is back above the $250 billion mark, with Tesla shares surging 136% year-to-date.
• The entrepreneur owns about 13% of all Tesla stock and so his personal wealth is directly tied to the value of the firm.
• It's a game of swings and roundabouts, though - last year he was the first person in history to lose about $200 billion dollars.

Elon Musk is one quarter of the way to becoming a trillionaire - for this week, at least.

The world's richest man just got even richer, thanks to some favorable market movements. The Tesla and SpaceX chief's net worth now stands at $255 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, racing ahead of LVMH owner Bernard Arnault as investors continue to pile cash into Tesla.

The EV maker's shares topped $290 this week, lifting its market cap to over $900 billion. Of this eye-watering figure, Musk himself owns around 13% and holds over 300 million exercisable options - as such, his personal fortune is inextricably tied to the stock-market performance of the firm.

The stock's remarkable rebound in 2023 - up 136% year-to-date - can be credited in part to investor excitement over the rise of generative AI, which has buoyed the entire equity market this year. The rally has propelled Musk's personal wealth into the stratosphere, making him the world's sole quarter-trillionaire.

But Musk has been here before: in November 2021, when Tesla shares hit an all-time high, his net worth was estimated at $340 billion. Just eight months later, it fell to $125 billion, which saw the businessman go down in the Guinness World Records for the largest amount of money lost (between $180-200 billion) in a year. Ouch.