Elon Musk Overtakes Bill Gates As 2nd Richest

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has added $100.3 billion to his net worth this year, surpassing  Bill Gates to become the world's second-richest person.

The 49-year-old Tesla Inc. co-founder has an electric vehicle and cleans energy company to thank for the staggering increase in his wealth.

About three-quarters of his net worth is comprised of Tesla shares, which are valued more than four times as much as his stake in Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX. 

As Tesla's market value approached $500 billion, Elon Musk had a one-word reaction that was 'liked' over 16,000 times on the microblogging platform Twitter.

"Wow," he wrote in response to a tweet about a surge in Tesla's share price.

While Mr Musk may have responded with only a monosyllabic "wow", his fans flooded social media with memes as news of him overtaking Bill Gates as the world's second-richest person spread. Mr Musk's milestone is only the second time in the index's eight-year history that Bill Gates has ranked lower than number two.