elon musk is starting the new year off strong over the course of a few hours on monday the twittersavvy mogul added about 259 billion to his net worth musk’s fortune stands at 2976 billion as of 1 pm in new york forbes estimates putting him close to the 300 billion threshold he briefly passed in november he remains the world’s richest person some 97 billion ahead of secondplace bernard arnault ceo of french fashion empire lvmh jeff bezos is no 3 richest as usual musk has tesla’s soaring stock price to thank on sunday the electric car maker announced it delivered more than 936000 cars in 2021 beating analysts’ projections investors were quick to react when the market opened on monday paying less heed to news on december 30 that the company recalled 475000 of its cars manufactured between 2014 and 2021 tesla shares jumped more than 10 as of 1 pm the company’s market capitalization has again topped the 1 trillion mark after dipping below that level last month musk who is tesla’s ceo and owns about 156 of its stock continues to sell shares in late december he closed out the year by unloading nearly 3 million shares on the open market to cover the tax bills on some 57 million stock options he simultaneously exercised musk tweeted in december that he would pay about 11 billion in taxes for 2021 which could place him among the biggest individual us taxpayers ever he sold 157 million tesla shares worth more than 16 billion pretax over the course of the year musk has been on quite a ride his fortune jumped by more than 200 billion over 2020 and 2021 including adding 116 billion to his net worth last year alone–setting the record for the biggest oneyear gain of any billionaire forbes has ever tracked another potential windfall awaits him later this month when tesla is slated to report fourth quarter earnings if the company hits certain operational and valuation goals–as analysts widely expect–musk will earn millions of lucrative stock options that could pad his fortune with billions of dollars