After Tesla’s share price increased, Elon Musk has become the world’s richest person.

After passing his net worth 185 billion (£136bn), Elon Musk took the top spot from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had held it since 2017, but amid the threat of regulation and his divorce to ex-wife MacKenzie Scott which saw him give her 4% stake of the business, Amazon’s stock has not risen as high as it might otherwise have done, and helped Mr Musk become the world’s richest person.

Musk’s fortunes have been buoyed by politics in the US, where the Democrats will have control of the US Senate in the forthcoming session, BBC writes. Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities said: “A Blue Senate is very bullish and a potential ‘game changer’ for Tesla and the overall electric vehicle sector, with a more green-driven agenda now certainly in the cards for the next few years.” Expected electric vehicle tax credits would benefit Tesla, “which continues to have an iron grip on the market today”, Ives added.

A quick ascent

The Verge reports that Tesla’s stock has grown incredibly valuable over the last year or so, too, as Musk pulled the company out of so-called “production hell” and dramatically increased sales of its electric vehicles, thanks to the more affordable Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV. That coincided with an incredible rise of retail investors who were more willing to fully buy into Tesla’s story than many on Wall Street once were. And Musk’s stock stash will continue to grow, especially after he signed a major 10-year compensation package with the company in 2018 that further tied his earnings to Tesla’s stock price and revenue goals. He is awarded a raft of company stock options every time a new milestone is hit; the first tranche, which he received earlier this year, was worth some $800 million.

The Guardian reports that Tesla has the highest market cap of any car company in the world, despite producing a fraction of the cars of more established automakers. The car company currently has a market cap of $500 billion, after starting 2020 under $100 billion.

Business Insider broke down his complicated $185 billion wealth into 2 simple charts, as itt’s no surprise that those equity values have also swelled.