Billionaire Elon Musk, who is trying to purchase Twitter, had his personal net worth go up by billions thanks to his electric car company, Tesla, posting its highest quarterly profit to date on Thursday.
The Tesla stock was up about 6% on Thursday, trading near $1,035 a share, making the company one of the biggest winners on the stock market during the past two years of the pandemic. Musk’s fortune has also skyrocketed, making him the richest man in the world by a large margin. Musk’s net worth went up approximately $8.4 billion to $271.3 billion on Thursday, according to Forbes.
Tesla’s first-quarter earnings showed that the company generated $62 billion in revenue over the past year, and as a result, Musk successfully executed three of the 12 milestones outlined in his 2018 incentive program, which gives him stock options worth $23 billion, although he’s barred from cashing in for five years.
Musk said Tesla likely would manufacture more than 1.5 million vehicles in 2022, up 60% over last year, a mark of progress given that the business has struggled significantly with meeting manufacturing and output goals in the past few years.
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Tesla’s stock value has also long been driven by a cult following of the company and its star CEO, who has garnered a massive following on social media, in addition to the greatest fortune in the world.
“Such a joy to work with amazingly talented people at SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink & Boring Co!” Musk tweeted Thursday.
Such a joy to work with amazingly talented people at SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink & Boring Co!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
Musk claimed Thursday to have secured $46.5 billion in financing for his private takeover of Twitter and said he was considering appealing directly to shareholders to purchase the company. Musk had previously gone to Twitter’s board to ask to buy the company for $43 billion, but the board adopted a “poison pill” to prevent Musk from taking control of the company.
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Musk expressly tied his initial purchase of 9.2% of Twitter earlier this month to his ambition of making the platform more free-speech-oriented, which he said is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.
