Billionaire Musk's net worth zooms past Warren Buffett's

SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk speaks at a post-launch news conference to discuss the SpaceX Crew Dragon astronaut capsule in-flight abort test at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. January 19, 2020. [Reuters]

Elon Musk’s net worth soared past Warren Buffett on Friday as the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc became the seventh richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Musk’s fortune rose by USD6.07 billion on Friday, Bloomberg News said, following a 10.8 per cent jump in the electric carmaker’s stock.

Buffett’s net worth dropped earlier this week when he donated USD2.9 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock to charity, the report added.

Tesla’s shares have surged 500 per cent over the past year as the company increased sales of its Model 3 sedan.

The blistering rally also puts Musk in reach of a payday potentially worth USD1.8 billion, his second jackpot from the electric car maker in about two months.

The stock is up about 38% since the close on July 1, a day before the company reported its quarterly delivery numbers.

Tesla’s solid delivery numbers heightened expectations of a profitable second quarter, which would mark the first time in its history that it would report four consecutive quarters of profit.