Elon Musk earns $1.41 billion per hour on Monday as Tesla surge continues

Elon Musk raced to become the world's wealthiest person in 2021. And powered primarily by the pace at which Tesla is extending its dominance in the world of electric mobility, Musk is busy consolidating his position at the top of the list for the world's wealthiest too. Such is the remarkable rise that the Tesla CEO saw his personal fortune climb by as much as $33.8 billion on just Monday, a day that saw Tesla shares rise significantly.

Musk's fortunes currently stand at $304.2 billion as per Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Not only did he previously surpass Amazon's Jeff Bezos last year but is now creating quite a lead over him. Bezos currently has a $196 billion fortune.

The main thrust is coming from Tesla shares that saw a 13.5% rise to $1,199.78 on Monday. Musk owns around 18% of all Tesla shares and had previously walked the talk on his claims of reducing his stake by around 10%. And while there was a slide in share prices - selling around $10 billion worth of shares, the valuation of the EV maker had already returned to over $1 trillion last month.

But while $304.2 billion is a staggering figure, the peak for Musk was when his fortune was at $340 billion at one point in 2021.

While Musk also has a stake in SpaceX, it is Tesla that is widely believed to be his cash cow. The EV manufacturing company doubled its deliveries in 2021 to almost one million units across the world. The company delivered 300,000 units in the last quarter of the year alone. According to reports, Tesla Model 3 and Model Y were the most popular EVs from the US manufacturer with 911,208 units of both being sold.

And while the pandemic and chip shortage have hounded the global automotive industry at large, Tesla has managed to navigate its way out of choppy waters with a significant degree of ability and is now looking at further expanding figures in the new year.