
<h2 id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Elon Musk, the world’s richest man,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1580056291082280960?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a>&nbsp;a fresh foray into the perfume industry on Tuesday, hawking a “Burnt Hair” fragrance that he claimed sold 10,000 bottles within hours of launching, continuing the billionaire’s record of capitalizing on humor and his enthusiastic fan base to transform seemingly joke products into coveted merchandise.</p>



<h2>KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Musk on Tuesday used social media to&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579971705447256064" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">promote</a>&nbsp;his new perfume, “Burnt Hair,” calling it the “finest fragrance on Earth” and changing his Twitter biography to “Perfume Salesman.”</p>



<p>The fragrance is on sale for $100 a bottle on The Boring Company’s website, Musk’s tunneling enterprise, which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.boringcompany.com/burnthair" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">described</a>&nbsp;the perfume as “the essence of repugnant desire.”</p>



<p>In addition to dollars, the Tesla chief&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579972303647301632?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;the popular meme-based cryptocurrency dogecoin could be used to purchase “Burnt Hair,” which he described as an “<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579975550919413761?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">omnigender product</a>.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579994860802932736?s=20&amp;t=RHsPDiZo1Zo-BFxbHNLiJQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;over 5,000 bottles of “Burnt Hair” had sold less than two hours after he posted the launch.</p>



<p>Perfume sales had already crossed the 10,000 bottle milestone early Wednesday morning, Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1580056291082280960?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>, meaning he had racked up $1 million in sales within six hours of the product going live.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The finest fragrance on Earth!<a href="https://t.co/ohjWxNX5ZC">https://t.co/ohjWxNX5ZC</a> <a href="https://t.co/0J1lmREOBS">pic.twitter.com/0J1lmREOBS</a></p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579971705447256064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 11, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h2>CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long,” Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579974298156306432?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">joked</a>&nbsp;on Twitter, acknowledging the pun of his last name in the scent industry.&nbsp;</p>



<h2>FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>$215.4 billion. That’s Musk’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=161aa2f97999">estimated net worth</a>, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes’</em>real-time tracker. The figure makes him the richest person on the planet, comfortably ahead of French fashion tycoon&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bernard-arnault/?list=rtb/&amp;sh=40133a4b66fa">Bernard Arnault&nbsp;</a>($146.3 billion) and Amazon founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/?list=rtb/&amp;sh=5e5342051b23">Jeff Bezos</a>&nbsp;($135.6 billion), who come in second and third, respectively.&nbsp;</p>



<h2>KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Musk, who has a dedicated and enthusiastic following, has a track record of bringing ostensibly joke products to market to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/take-a-look-elon-musk-merchandise-tesla-hot-pants-flamethrower-2021-2?r=US&amp;IR=T" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">roaring success</a>. Most notably, this includes a limited edition line of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2018/2/1/16954950/elon-musk-flamethrowers-sold-out" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">flamethrowers</a>, also sold by The Boring Company, which rapidly sold out and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/10/17445838/boring-company-flamethrower-elon-musk-tweets-party" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sparked</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/19/elon-musk-said-it-was-not-a-flamethrower/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">concern</a>&nbsp;among lawmakers and police officials. Other merchandise Musk has launched—through his electric vehicle firm Tesla, aerospace firm SpaceX and The Boring Company—includes launched surfboards, tequila and red satin short shorts. Musk’s jokes and online influence have landed him in hot water in the past, however, and the way his tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/05/07/elon-musk-warns-people-to-invest-with-caution-as-dogecoin-rallies-ahead-of-his-snl-appearance/?sh=700d00fc7634">move</a>&nbsp;markets have triggered scrutiny from lawmakers, as well as numerous&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/11/16/jpmorgan-sues-tesla-for-162-million-in-warrant-dispute-tied-to-elon-musks-tweets/?sh=515b61ef69b4">lawsuits</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/24/elon-musk-brother-under-investigation-insider-trading" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">regulatory</a>&nbsp;investigations.</p>



<h2>FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/10/07/elon-musks-bizarre-week-twitter-deal-moves-ahead-tesla-stock-tanks-zooming-with-putin/?sh=4251f0b76dad">Elon Musk’s Bizarre Week: Twitter Deal Moves Ahead, Tesla Stock Tanks, Zooming’ With Putin</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Robert Hart, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Tesla Officially Opens Gruenheide Gigafactory

Elon’s Musk: Tesla Billionaire Hawks ‘Burnt Hair’ Perfume For $100 A Bottle


<h2 id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Elon Musk sold roughly $6.9 billion worth of Tesla stock over the past week, according to new Securities and Exchange Commission filings, in a surprise offload that comes more than three months after the world’s richest man&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519850299757846530?s=20&amp;t=5J_GRFHeqCKz9sNlbTRDjQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;there were &#8220;no further TSLA sales planned.&#8221;</p>



<h2>KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Musk sold more than 7.9 million shares in dozens of transactions between Friday and Tuesday, at an average price of $875 per share, according to the filings.</p>



<p>The billionaire will owe an estimated $1.65 billion in federal capital gains taxes from the sale, leaving about $5.25 billion in take-home pay.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s not clear why Musk chose to sell—he did not immediately respond to a request for comment from&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>.</p>



<h2>BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>More than $31 billion. That&#8217;s how much Tesla stock Musk has liquidated in a series of sales starting in November.</p>



<h2>KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Unlike earlier transactions, Musk&#8217;s sales this week were unexpected. The Tesla CEO hinted about his late 2021 sales in a November tweet, and he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/04/29/elon-musk-sells-more-tesla-stock-bringing-total-sales-to-more-than-8-billion-this-week/?sh=6523c61530ed">raised around $8.5 billion</a>&nbsp;in pretax funds in a series of April sales after signing a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. The $8.5 billion was expected to go toward the purchase, but Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/08/elon-musk-terminating-deal-to-buy-twitter-platform-plans-legal-action/?sh=1dfce8712e21">reneged on the deal</a>&nbsp;last month over purported concerns about the number of bots and spam accounts that populate the platform. Twitter quickly responded by filing&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/07/12/twitter-sues-elon-musk-for-trying-to-cancel-acquisition-deal/?sh=3b8d40183d38">a lawsuit against Musk</a>&nbsp;in Delaware Chancery Court in an attempt to force the deal to go through. A trial is set to begin on October 17 if the two sides don&#8217;t reach a settlement.&nbsp;</p>



<h2>FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>We&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=152b18687999">estimate Musk</a>&nbsp;to be worth $255.1 billion, making him the wealthiest person on Earth.</p>



<h2>FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/04/29/elon-musk-sells-more-tesla-stock-bringing-total-sales-to-more-than-8-billion-this-week/?sh=6523c61530ed">Elon Musk Sells More Tesla Stock—Bringing Total Sales To More Than $8 Billion This Week</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/08/elon-musk-terminating-deal-to-buy-twitter-platform-plans-legal-action/?sh=1dfce8712e21">Elon Musk ‘Terminating’ Deal To Buy Twitter—Platform Plans Legal Action</a>(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/07/12/twitter-sues-elon-musk-for-trying-to-cancel-acquisition-deal/?sh=3b8d40183d38">Twitter Sues Elon Musk For Trying To Cancel Acquisition</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Nicholas Reimann, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and chairman of Tesla Motors at Tesla’s headquarters in San Carlos Tuesday Oct. 24, 3008.  Silicon Valley icon Musk became a billionaire founding PayPal, but he’s out to do something even more important – help humanity reach beyon

Elon Musk Sells $6.9 Billion Of Tesla Stock


<p>The fortune of the world’s richest person, Tesla chief Elon Musk, soared by $14.5 billion Tuesday, as shares of his electric vehicle maker rose 9.4%, outpacing the tech heavy Nasdaq’s 2.5% rebound from last week’s decline. Analysts attributed Tesla’s outperformance to both comments by Musk and broader market factors.</p>



<p>Referring to an interview Musk granted to Bloomberg at the Qatar Economic Forum Tuesday in which the Tesla chief highlighted the size of the company’s order backlog, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said that “positive demand comments from Musk have resonated with the Street and given some confidence in this white knuckle macro environment.” In the interview, Musk reiterated his concerns about a recession and the need to downsize Tesla’s workforce, but investors appear to have zeroed in on his comments downplaying the threat of competition, and identifying supply constraints as the main obstacle to fulfilling the company’s robust demand.</p>



<p>“As anyone knows who has tried to order a Tesla, the demand for our cars is extremely high and the wait list is long,” Musk told Bloomberg. “This is not intentional and we’re increasing production capacity as fast as humanly possible.”</p>



<p>According to RiskReversal Advisors’ founder and principal Dan Nathan, this commentary may have been encouraging to investors “buying into what they think is a ‘make the quarter at any cost mentality’ as Musk is known to send out encouraging messages to employees as he did last week.” Nathan adds that “over the last year, shares of Tesla in the last month of each quarter have had huge rallies in the last couple weeks of the month from their lows.” But he also cautions that Musk’s comments about a recession and lingering China production issues “might be setting investors up for a miss on Q2 deliveries and earnings.”</p>



<p>GLJ Research CEO Gordon Johnson says that Tesla’s soaring stock price is due to broader market factors, noting that with stocks coming off their worst week since March 2020 last week, “the 14-day relative strength index of the S&amp;P 500 suggests the stock market is currently oversold, and high-beta stocks like Tesla were due for a bounce.” (Stocks with high beta coefficients generally move more than the broad market in either direction.)</p>



<p>“But none of this is fundamental,” says Johnson, a Tesla bear, who says he expects the company’s Q2 deliveries and earnings to disappoint. “Thus, with Tesla trading at a ~50x forward P/E multiple vs. 4.6x for its peer group, we see any fundamental disappointments as likely sending the shares lower.”</p>



<p>That prospect may be daunting for both Tesla investors and the company’s TechnoKing Elon Musk. But at least for now, he remains the world’s richest person by a longshot, worth $228.4 billion, according to Forbes’ estimates–-$88 billion more than No. 2 richest Bernard Arnault of French luxury conglomerate LVMH.</p>



<p><strong><em>By Matt Durot, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


TIME Person of the Year

Why Elon Musk Is Nearly $15 Billion Richer Tuesday


<h2 id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Tesla produced and delivered record numbers of vehicles during the first quarter of 2022, despite supply chain issues, Covid surges and health restrictions in China causing it to shut down production during the first few months of the year.</p>



<h2 id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Tesla delivered 310,048 vehicles from January through March, up 70% from the&nbsp;<a href="https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-q1-2021-vehicle-production-deliveries" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">same period in 2021</a>, and produced 305,407 vehicles, it said Saturday.</p>



<p>The Model 3 and Model Y accounted for the vast majority of deliveries in the quarter, which were up only slightly from the&nbsp;<a href="https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-q4-2021-vehicle-production-deliveries" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fourth quarter</a>&nbsp;of 2021, when it delivered nearly 309,000 vehicles.</p>



<p>Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1510288141495640070" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet</a>&nbsp;it was an “exceptionally difficult quarter due to supply chain interruptions &amp; China zero Covid policy,” and applauded the work from the Tesla team and key suppliers that “saved the day.”</p>



<p>Wedbush Securities analysts Daniel Ives and John Katsingris wrote Saturday the first-quarter sales were a “positive step in the right direction,” noting that most investors will look past the slight miss on deliveries – Wall Street analysts were on average expecting 312,000, they said.</p>



<p>They believe delivery of roughly 20,000 to 25,000 units was pushed out of the first quarter into the second due to logistical and factory issues, “which makes this underlying demand number still look strong with a robust trajectory” for the rest of the year.</p>



<h2 id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Tesla is the largest electric vehicle seller in the world, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/01/02/tesla-says-it-delivered-record-936172-electric-vehicles-in-2021/?sh=70b2b7584d8b">reported a record</a>&nbsp;936,172 deliveries last year, but like all automakers, it is struggling with shortages of parts. The&nbsp;<em>New York Times</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/business/tesla-sales-electric-vehicles.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reports</a>&nbsp;Tesla has fared better than its competitors from the worldwide computer chip shortage because it was able to substitute chips needed for its vehicles. Covid-related shutdowns have also affected the company, as Tesla&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-suspends-production-shanghai-factory-4-days-comply-with-covid-curbs-2022-03-28/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly</a>&nbsp;had to suspend production at its Shanghai factory for four days due to a staggered Covid-19 lockdown in the city earlier this week. The company has moved to open new factories, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/03/22/teslas-stalled-german-plant-opens-amid-chip-and-water-woes-rising-metal-costs/">the launch</a>&nbsp;of a “Gigafactory” in Germany last week. Tesla plans to host a&nbsp;<a href="https://austonia.com/cyber-rodeo-giga-texas" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“cyber rodeo”</a>&nbsp;as part of its grand opening of a vehicle production plant in Austin, Texas, next week.</p>



<h2 id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>Tesla will&nbsp;<a href="https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-vehicle-production-deliveries-and-date-financial-results-webcast-first-quarter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announce</a>&nbsp;its financial results for the first quarter after market close on April 20.</p>



<h2 id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/03/28/tesla-shares-jump-as-electric-car-maker-seeks-stock-split/">Tesla Shares Jump As Electric Car Maker Seeks Stock Split</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/01/02/tesla-says-it-delivered-record-936172-electric-vehicles-in-2021/?sh=70b2b7584d8b">Tesla Says It Delivered Record 936,172 Electric Vehicles In 2021</a> (<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/"></a>Anna Kaplan, Forbes Staff</strong></p>


Tesla Delivers Record 310,000 Vehicles During What Elon Musk Calls An ‘Exceptionally Difficult’ First Quarter


<h2 id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=627b29af7999">Elon Musk</a>, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the richest person in history, was named&nbsp;<em>Time</em>&nbsp;magazine’s&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Person of the Year</a>&nbsp;for 2021 on Monday, capping a year of accomplishments and controversies for the billionaire.</p>



<h2 id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>This year SpaceX completed the first all-civilian mission to space and was selected by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/as-artemis-moves-forward-nasa-picks-spacex-to-land-next-americans-on-moon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NASA</a>&nbsp;to build a new lunar lander, while Tesla’s market cap reached over $1 trillion after a deal with Hertz, making Musk the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/10/26/elon-musk-nearing-300-billion-fortune-is-the-richest-person-in-history/?sh=345fd6081933">richest person ever</a>.</p>



<p>He also hosted&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/05/13/elon-musk-is-20-billion-poorer-since-hosting-saturday-night-live/?sh=1d3ff9c3fcb6"><em>Saturday Night Live</em></a>&nbsp;and continued his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/style/elon-musk-memes.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">meme-filled</a>&nbsp;Twitter reign.</p>



<p><em>Time</em>&nbsp;named&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/entertainer-of-the-year-2021-olivia-rodrigo/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Olivia Rodrigo</a>&nbsp;as Artist of the Year for 2021, gymnast&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/athlete-of-the-year-2021-simone-biles/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Simone Biles</a>&nbsp;as Athlete of the Year and the scientists behind the Covid-19 vaccines as&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/heroes-of-the-year-2021-vaccine-scientists/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Heroes of the Year</a>.</p>



<p>The magazine did not release a shortlist of contenders for the Person of the Year position, unlike in years past.</p>



<p>Last year the magazine&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/12/11/joe-biden-kamala-harris-named-times-person-of-the-year-beating-out-trump-fauci-and-racial-justice-movement/?sh=1d00a60c6ba4">co-named</a>&nbsp;Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the title.</p>



<h2 id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Musk is a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/08/elon-musk-snl-saturday-night-live-host-internet-controversy-485781" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">divisive</a>&nbsp;figure. While his&nbsp;<em>Time</em>&nbsp;profile makes clear he is widely considered a visionary, it also mentions that his companies have faced allegations of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043336212/tesla-racial-discrimination-lawsuit" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">racism</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-sued-by-second-female-worker-over-sexual-harassment-retaliation-2021-12-10/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sexual harassment</a>&nbsp;and been accused of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/18/tesla-workers-factory-conditions-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">poor working conditions</a>, as well as extensive fines by regulators. As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/13/media/slug-time-person-year-elon-musk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CNN</a>&nbsp;pointed out,&nbsp;<em>Time</em>’s Person of the Year is “not necessarily considered an honor, since the selection could have wielded negative influence.” Past title holders include everyone from Greta Thunberg and Pope Francis to Vladimir Putin and even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/08/19/fact-check-hitler-time-magazine-man-year-1938-not-honor/8149799002/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Adolf Hitler</a>.</p>



<h2 id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=627b29af7999">$265.4 billion</a>. That’s Musk’s net worth as of Monday, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>.</p>



<h2 id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>The&nbsp;<em>Time</em>&nbsp;Person of the Year profile describes Musk a number of ways, including: “This is the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit: clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman, cad; a madcap hybrid of Thomas Edison, P.T. Barnum, Andrew Carnegie and&nbsp;<em>Watchmen</em>’s Doctor Manhattan, the brooding, blue-skinned man-god who invents electric cars and moves to Mars.”</p>



<h2 id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p>“<a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021</a>” (<em>Time</em>)</p>



<p>“<a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk-choice/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Why TIME Chose Elon Musk as the 2021 Person of the Year</a>&nbsp;(<em>Time</em>)</p>



<p>“<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/13/media/slug-time-person-year-elon-musk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Time Person of the Year: Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, named most influential of 2021</a>” (CNN)</p>



<p>“<a href="https://www.today.com/news/time-2021-person-year-elon-musk-t242943" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Time 2021 Person of the Year: Elon Musk</a>” (<em>Today</em>)</p>



<p>“<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/10/26/elon-musk-nearing-300-billion-fortune-is-the-richest-person-in-history/?sh=345fd6081933">Elon Musk, Nearing $300 Billion Fortune, Is The Richest Person In History</a>” (<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p>“<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/time-person-of-the-year/3/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Complete list of every TIME Person of the Year for the last 25+ years, from Trump to Putin to Obama</a>” (CBS News)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/teakvetenadze/"></a><strong><em>By Téa Kvetenadze, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk Named Time Person Of The Year


<p><strong>One is Elon Musk (duh), and the other is&nbsp;JB Straubel. But there were three more—and there’s a cautionary tale in why they aren’t billionaires too.</strong></p>



<p>Electric car upstart Tesla gathered reporters at a Santa Monica Airport hangar on a July afternoon in 2006 to unveil its battery-powered roadster, an audacious, $100,000 two-seater for which few automotive experts saw much hope of success. The company’s brash, tech-savvy CEO, Martin Eberhard, declared that Silicon Valley ingenuity would teach Detroit’s auto giants how to make compelling zero-emission cars. Tesla’s first effort, a modified Lotus Elise chassis packed with 7,000 tiny lithium-ion cells, was a high-end concept that would soon be followed by a lower-priced family sedan, the chief executive said. The vision he laid out that day ultimately came to pass, but not with him in charge.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Tesla this month became the first carmaker to hit an astonishing $1 trillion valuation, but the CEO who introduced the company to the press 15 years ago didn’t become synonymous with the brand. And he certainly didn’t wind up as the wealthiest person in history. That’s Elon Musk, of course, Tesla’s earliest investor and the company’s current CEO. Musk was also present at Tesla’s debut in 2006, but he assumed a lower profile that day, mainly arguing for the need to shift cars away from gasoline power as quickly as possible.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Tesla’s original CEO, Eberhard, and another early executive named Marc Tarpenning, who in 2003 dreamed up the idea of naming the company’s vehicles in honor of inventor Nikola Tesla, are Tesla’s original shareholders — the first men to claim ownership of the upstart brand that would go on to shake up the Detroit establishment. But neither of them retained enough Tesla stock to achieve billionaire status, much less Musk’s current net worth that&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;estimates at $282 billion as of Nov. 10. It was Musk’s seed capital—the result of an early payday investing in payments processor PayPal—that turned Eberhard and Tarpenning’s vision into a reality. Ultimately, it also set Musk on a path to take full control of Tesla by steadily raising his ownership stake in a series of nine funding rounds prior to the company’s 2010 IPO, each of which further diluted the stakes of Eberhard and Tarpenning. Even today Musk’s stake grows as he continues to receive quarterly stock awards, in lieu of salary, worth billions of dollars.</p>



<p>In an interview, Eberhard says he retains a “relatively small” stake in the carmaker, while declining to be specific.&nbsp; “I sold a good chunk of my stock a long time ago,” Eberhard, 61, says from his home in Washington state’s San Juan Islands. “People somehow have the idea that I was a zillionaire when I started Tesla. I was not.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Had Eberhard been wealthier from the sale of the Rocket eBook, an early handheld electronic reader he and Tarpenning created in the late 1990s, there would have been no need to seek initial funding from Musk, he says.</p>



<p>Musk has often said he doesn’t care about wealth and sold his Los Angeles mansions last year to live in a humble, prefab box house on his SpaceX campus in Boca Chica, Texas. Nevertheless, he keeps amassing wealth at a remarkable pace. That’s because of an early ownership stake of nearly 20% in the company and a long-term compensation plan announced in 2018 that rewards him with billions of dollars of additional Tesla stock every time it hits quarterly performance targets based on financial and valuation metrics. (He’s also preparing to sell 10% of his stake, worth about $15 billion as of Nov. 9, to avoid a massive tax hit as some long-term options mature.)</p>



<p>“I own no Tesla stock now. Of course I could not imagine a $1 trillion valuation!”&nbsp;Tesla cofounder Ian Wright</p>



<p>Eberhard, meanwhile, sold much of his stake after being pushed out of Tesla in 2007, before the Roadster’s launch. He sued Musk in 2009 over his ouster and for slander, before settling the case for undisclosed terms. As part of a settlement, he dropped opposition to Musk, former Tesla Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel and Ian Wright, an early engineer with the company, also being called cofounders, in addition to himself and Tarpenning.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“When I got kicked out of Tesla I had no money—I mean I really had no money,” Eberhard says. “Worse than that, I had no possibility of employment for about a year” because of a restrictive intellectual property agreement with Tesla, he says. “I did not participate in any investment rounds after I left.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Eberhard won’t provide details of his Tesla stake, but he confirms he’s not a billionaire. Tarpenning, these days a partner at Spero Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, has said he, too, still owns Tesla stock, but he isn’t listed among its top shareholders. He didn’t respond to inquiries from&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>.</p>



<p>Of the five official cofounders, only Straubel, who left Tesla in 2019, is likely to have attained billionaire status from his holdings. His stake may be worth about $1.3 billion, assuming he retains a significant portion of Tesla stock held when he left. Straubel, currently CEO and cofounder of battery recycling startup Redwood Materials, declined to comment on the matter. Engineer Wright, who joined Eberhard and Tarpenning a few months after they created Tesla, left in 2004 to start another EV company. He sold his stake years ago.</p>



<p>“I own no Tesla stock now,” he tells&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>. “Of course I could not imagine a $1 trillion valuation!”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Beyond making Musk the world’s richest person, the company that’s become synonymous with a global car revolution has also enriched investors and board members including venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, as well as Elon’s younger brother, Kimbal, and countless investors inspired by the potential for a clean energy future.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large"><p>“Whatever my opinion is about Musk, I am still super happy to see the electric car revolution—that we after all started—I&#8217;d like to see that revolution winning.”Martin Eberhard</p></blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<p>For all the company’s success in the electric vehicle space and newfound financial stability, as well as the non-stop attention Musk seeks and generates, Tesla’s earliest days were marked by a high degree of management and strategic turbulence that left a single cofounder in control. Other tech-oriented giants that attained trillion-dollar valuations, such as Microsoft and Alphabet, created several billionaires among their cofounders, though Musk’s singular financial gains aren’t so unusual.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“While it does seem true that other notable technology firms minted multiple financial winners, a somewhat similar dynamic at Tesla played out at Apple,” says David Hsu, professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Cofounder Steve Jobs’ Apple stake was worth an estimated $2 billion at the time of his death in 2011 and Steve Wozniak’s wealth is an estimated $100 million, though Ronald Wayne, Apple’s little-known third cofounder, sold his stake early for $800, Hsu says. Musk’s rewards today simply flow from a risky early bet that’s paid off big for him.</p>



<p>“It’s not only ownership stakes of cofounders; we could also point to cases of missing out by investors, including angel and VC investors,” Hsu said. “At the time Musk invested in the Series A round, and for a considerable amount of time afterward, there was a lot of uncertainty about the ability of the firm to execute its bold vision. Some might argue that sentiment is still somewhat true today.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Citing a “non-disparagement” clause that was part of the 2009 settlement, Eberhard declines to elaborate on his views about Musk these days. By contrast, Musk himself has shown far less restraint. He described Eberhard as “literally the worst person I’ve ever worked with” in a January 2020 interview for the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxmO_QuD4Do" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Third Row Tesla podcast</a>, hosted by Musk fans.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>Still, the company’s original CEO, who owned “somewhat less” than 5% when he left Tesla, says he’s not unhappy these days, despite not profiting more from its surge.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“The valuation is what it is. What I&#8217;m happy about is the success of the company. It&#8217;s crucial that we get off of fossil fuels and Tesla has been the major driver of that, which is what we had hoped for from the beginning,” Eberhard says.</p>



<p>“Whatever my opinion is about Musk, I am still super happy to see the electric car revolution—that we after all started—I&#8217;d like to see that revolution winning. It has to.”&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong><em>By Alan Ohnsman, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


GettyImages-760016751

Tesla Had 5 Founders. Why Did Only Two Get Really Rich?


<p><strong>TOPLINE</strong> Shares of Tesla, one of the past year&#8217;s best-performing stocks, continued to rack up massive losses Tuesday after Chief Executive Elon Musk over the weekend sparked concerns that he would sell 10% of his stake in the electric car maker, casting doubts on the long-term viability of the stock’s meteoric gains.</p>



<h2 id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>After falling nearly 5% on Monday, shares of Tesla plummeted another 12% Tuesday to $1,023.50, pushing the firm’s market capitalization down by about $140 billion and marking the stock’s worst one-day drop since falling 21% on Sept. 8, 2020.</p>



<p>Fueling concerns on Tuesday, storied hedge fund investor Michael Burry, who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/opinion/04burry.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">famously predicted</a>&nbsp;the housing bubble that sparked the Great Recession,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/the-big-short-investor-michael-burry-says-elon-musk-may-want-to-sell-tesla-stock-to-cover-his-personal-debts-and-compares-the-current-market-to-the-dutch-tulip-bubble/ar-AAQuZMw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">emerged</a>&nbsp;from a Twitter hiatus to say Musk “NEEDS to sell” to help personal service loans he’s taken using Tesla shares as collateral.</p>



<p>Though Musk remains the richest person in the world, his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/">fortune</a>&nbsp;tanked by about $33.7 billion Tuesday,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/11/09/elon-musks-fortune-plunges-by-nearly-29-billion-tuesday-as-tesla-shares-slide/">falling</a>&nbsp;to $271 billion and racking up two-day losses of nearly $50 billion.</p>



<p>Triggering the two-day stock decline, Musk on Saturday&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1457064697782489088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1457064697782489088%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fembedly.forbes.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Dcfc0fb0733504c77aa4a6ac07caaffc7schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Felonmusk%2Fstatus%2F1457064697782489088image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3D8804248494c144f5b4765c41f66c6ed5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">called</a>&nbsp;on Twitter users to help decide whether he should sell 10% of his roughly 23% stake in Tesla in response to a short-lived proposal in Congress that would have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/10/27/new-billionaire-wealth-tax-targeting-assets-of-700-richest-americans-unveiled-heres-how-the-democratic-plan-would-work/">taxed</a>&nbsp;billionaires’ unrealized stock gains to help curb tax avoidance among the ultrawealthy.</p>



<p>Despite the selloff, analysts at both Wedbush and Jefferies increased their Tesla price targets on Monday to $1,800 and $1,400, respectively, with Wedbush’s Dan Ives saying the stock could soar as much as 65% over the next year thanks to better-than-expected profit margins unveiled in the third quarter.</p>



<p>But other analysts aren’t so sure: Tesla stock holds an average price target of $810 based out of 35 firms issuing such guidance, according to Bloomberg, representing about 25% downside to Tuesday’s closing price.</p>



<h2 id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p><strong>$1 trillion.</strong>&nbsp;That’s Tesla’s market value after the two-day plunge. Shares have slipped nearly 17% from an all-time high on Thursday, but are still up 150% over the past year, compared to 32% for the S&amp;P 500.</p>



<h2 id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Musk’s weekend tweets sparked investor concerns that Tesla’s stock could struggle to hold on to its recent gains amid a massive liquidation after the poll&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2021/11/07/elon-musks-twitter-followers-vote-for-him-to-sell-10-of-tesla-stock/">closed</a>&nbsp;with nearly 58% of the more than 3.5 million respondents voting in support of the proposal. Musk, who pledged in a separate tweet to “abide by the results of [the] poll,” owns about 23% of Tesla’s total shares. On Monday, Ives said investors should not be “overly concerned about” the possible transaction because it was already expected that Musk would sell about 6% of his stake to help pay a big tax bill coming due from stock options set to expire next August. In a note, Oanda analyst Ed Moya also chalked up Musk’s motivations to the impending tax bill.</p>



<h2 id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“We would rather Musk rip the Band-Aid off now and sell this portion of stock rather than it lingering over the next year and feeding into any bear thesis,” Ives said Monday.</p>



<h2 id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



<p>Since Tesla went public on the Nasdaq exchange in 2010, Musk has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2021/11/07/heres-how-much-elon-musk-would-pay-in-taxes-if-he-sells-10-of-his-tesla-stock/?sh=5c90d8c1115a">only sold</a>&nbsp;stock twice. In July 2010, Musk sold slightly more than 1.4 million shares for $24 million, and in 2016, he sold another 2.7 million shares for about $593 million.</p>



<h2 id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/11/09/elon-musks-fortune-plunges-by-nearly-29-billion-tuesday-as-tesla-shares-slide/">Elon Musk’s Fortune Plunges By Nearly $29 Billion Tuesday As Tesla Shares Slide</a>&nbsp;<em>(Forbes)</em></p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2021/11/07/heres-how-much-elon-musk-would-pay-in-taxes-if-he-sells-10-of-his-tesla-stock/">Here&#8217;s How Much Elon Musk Would Pay In Taxes If He Sells 10% Of His Tesla Stock</a>&nbsp;<em>(Forbes)</em></p>



<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2021/11/07/elon-musks-twitter-followers-vote-for-him-to-sell-10-of-tesla-stock/">Elon Musk&#8217;s Twitter Followers Vote For Him To Sell 10% Of Tesla Stock</a>&nbsp;<em>(Forbes)</em></p>



<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisakim/2021/11/06/elon-musk-says-hell-sell-10-of-his-tesla-stock-if-twitter-users-vote-for-him-to/">Elon Musk Says He&#8217;ll Sell 10% Of His Tesla Stock If Twitter Users Vote For Him To</a> <em>(Forbes)</em></p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/"></a><strong><em>By Jonathan Ponciano, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Tesla Stock Wipes $140 Billion In Worst One-Day Decline This Year After Elon Musk Teases Massive Sale


<p id="h-the-company-is-at-a-standoff-with-the-modi-government-which-wants-musk-to-commit-to-building-electric-vehicles-locally-before-providing-subsidies-or-waiving-tariffs-that-make-importing-teslas-prohibitively-expensive"><strong>The company is at a standoff with the Modi government, which wants Musk to commit to building electric vehicles locally before providing subsidies or waiving tariffs that make importing Teslas prohibitively expensive.</strong></p>



<p><em>by&nbsp;Aayushi Pratap&nbsp;and&nbsp;Alan Ohnsman</em></p>



<p>AFP PHOTO/ROBERTO SCHMIDT/PATRICK PLEUL/DPA-ZENTRALBILD/GETTY IMAGESGETTY IMAGES. DESIGN BY FORBES</p>



<p>W<strong>hen Tesla opened pre-orders</strong>&nbsp;for its Model 3 electric sedan in India in 2016, Arun Bhat, a businessman in the southern city of Bengaluru and an ardent Elon Musk fan, was among the first in the country to pre-book his dream car. Bhat even got rid of four luxury vehicles to make space for it.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“I thought Tesla would launch in India in the next couple of years,” Bhat says. “I just love the product and the minimalist interior.” Five years later, his wait continues.</p>



<p>The world’s most valuable automaker, with a market cap now topping $1 trillion that makes Musk the richest person in history, is at a high point, both in profit and global sales this year. The company has a shot at delivering a record 1 million electric vehicles worldwide in 2021. Yet after years of floating the idea of selling Teslas in India, Musk has yet to figure out how to do that, even as his focus on the market intensifies. In recent weeks the company has stepped up its push,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-lobbies-modis-office-india-slash-taxes-before-it-enters-market-sources-2021-10-20/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">led by the company’s local policy chief, Manuj Khurana</a>, to get a waiver of steep import fees that would almost double the price of imported Teslas. Instead, the Modi government wants Tesla to commit to local production.</p>



<p>India&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href="https://vahan.parivahan.gov.in/makermodel/vahan/dashboard.xhtml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ministry of Road Transport and Highways</a>&nbsp;approved four Tesla variants for local sale earlier this year. And although Tesla has yet to announce a formal plan for India, it’s already secured retail space in Mumbai, registered an office in Bengaluru and is making key hires to support sales in the country. For now, things are at an impasse. Setting up local manufacturing would take at least a year and a hefty investment from Tesla, and starting with sales of imported vehicles is a non-starter without a tariff waiver. India’s “import duties are the highest in the world by far of any large country!” Musk told a local&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1418641920595791872?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fan on Twitter</a>&nbsp;in July. Without waiver relief, India’s import tariff means that a Tesla Model 3, which starts at about $44,000 in the U.S. would have to sell for about $80,000 in India for the company to turn a profit, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cardekho.com/cars/Tesla" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">local estimates</a>.&nbsp;</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large"><p>“India’s import duties are the highest in the world by far of any large country!”—Elon Musk via Twitter</p></blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<p>But that’s not the only hurdle. There’s limited electric vehicle charging infrastructure, a lack of significant incentives for electric car buyers and India’s road infrastructure presents challenges. Despite a massive population of 2.2 billion people, India is also a relatively small auto market, with sales of fewer than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ibef.org/industry/india-automobiles.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">3.5 million passenger and commercial autos in 2020</a>. There’s even less demand for both EVs and luxury autos. Only about 5,000 battery-powered vehicles were purchased in India last year, such as those made by Bangalore-based Mahindra Electric, accounting for less than 0.5% of total sales.</p>



<p>“It’s like what they used to say about China: ‘a billion people without money is not a market,’” says Michael Dunne, a long-time analyst and advisor on the auto industry in Asia who runs San Diego-based consultancy&nbsp;<a href="https://www.zozogo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Zozo Go</a>. “That&#8217;s kind of where we are with India. You have an active concentration of wealth and then everybody else who&#8217;s just scraping by. The median average price of a new car sold in India is going to be less than $10,000—a lot less than a Tesla.”</p>



<p>So why bother? Tesla is growing quickly throughout the world, expanding production and sales in China, awaiting German government permission to start building electric vehicles at its Giga Berlin plant and preparing to make Teslas in Austin, Texas.&nbsp;</p>



<p>India, although it’s the world’s second-most populous country, isn’t a particularly attractive market today, but it has a growing, tech-savvy middle class. And like China, its consumer market has massive long-term potential. India’s government is also starting to take steps to encourage EV sales to curb toxic emissions, offering buyers enticements including lower registration fees and road taxes—though it isn’t offering the kinds of incentives seen in the U.S. and Europe that can knock thousands of dollars off the purchase price.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Geopolitical tension between India and China is a further complication as Tesla lobbies the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-lobbies-modis-office-india-slash-taxes-before-it-enters-market-sources-2021-10-20/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Modi government</a>&nbsp;for tariff relief. Road and Transportation Minister Nitin Gadkari has warned the carmaker against shipping vehicles built at its Shanghai plant for sale in India, telling Musk to build locally. “You should manufacture electric cars in India and also export cars from India,” he said in media interviews this month. If Musk agrees to do that, Gadkari said he assured the CEO that Tesla will receive significant government support.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Mercurial billionaire Musk has teased the possibility of Indian production—as an enticement for a tariff waiver. “If Tesla is able to succeed with imported vehicles, then a factory in India is quite likely,” Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1418656085267865602?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted in July</a>. But the Modi government hasn’t bent in its demand for the company to commit to local production before it considers a waiver or subsidies. Tesla didn’t respond to email inquiries on the matter, and Tesla executives didn’t provide an update on the company’s plans for the country during its quarterly earnings call in October.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large"><p>“You (Musk) should manufacture electric cars in India and also export cars from&nbsp;India”.–Nitin Gadkari, India’s Road and Transportation Minister</p></blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<p>India would be a compelling base to build vehicles for other markets Musk has yet to enter, including much of Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, says Dunne of Zozo Go. Tesla may want to follow the path of Hyundai Motor, which has turned its Indian operations into a massive source of exports, shipping&nbsp;<a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/auto/cars/story/hyundai-exports-2020-21-creta-venue-i20-verna-nios-others-1791729-2021-04-16" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">more than a 1 million cars and crossovers to 88 international markets</a>&nbsp;during its last fiscal year.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>In the years to come an Indian export base could also become “a counterbalance or counterweight to all the eggs (Musk) currently has placed in China,” Dunne says.</p>



<p>Despite some eager local fans, auto analyst Bakar Sadik Agwan with GlobalData in Hyderabad, India, sees significant local hurdles for Tesla. Notably, there are so few charging stations that using a Tesla to travel between cities will be impossible unless the company sets up its own network. “They will need a strong sales network, they need a service network and as well as they need their own charging infrastructure,” says Agwan.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Pricing is also a big hurdle. In the U.S. the cheapest Tesla Model 3 starts at $40,000. Even if Musk gets a tariff waiver, that&#8217;s too expensive for the vast majority of locals, putting Tesla in the luxury car bracket. In 2020 Indians bought just 30,000 luxury vehicles, Agwan says.</p>



<p>As a result, Tesla might sell fewer than 150 cars in its first five years in India, according to Soumen Mandal, a Counterpoint Technology Market Research analyst in Gurugram, India.</p>



<p>Local roads are yet another challenge. Many aren’t mapped on GPS and traffic in dense cities is often blocked—in some places by stray&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-08-23/stray-cattle-india-get-glow-dark-horns-prevent-crashes-vehicles" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cattle and dogs</a>. Tesla’s Autopilot feature “where you just plug in the address from point A to point B won&#8217;t work in India,” says Jay Shah, a businessman in Ahmedabad in western India who has also pre-booked his Tesla. “The roads are not marked, there are animals on the road, there are two-wheelers on the roads, so it is next to impossible.”</p>



<p>Long-time Tesla fan Bhat is optimistic he’s close to finally getting his vehicle. (He’s now more interested in a Model Y compact SUV than the Model 3 he pre-ordered.) To ensure that Musk knows he’s got local support, Bhat created a Twitter page with fellow enthusiast Nikhil Chaudhary to “pester” their hero and share the latest on Tesla’s India plans. In 2020, when other fans asked Musk on Twitter whether there was progress on the local launch, the American CEO replied “next year for sure.” The phrase has become an inside joke between Bhat and Chaudhary.</p>



<p>Even if Bhat has to pay a steep price for his Tesla, he says it will be worth it was given the long-term fuel savings. But mainly he just really wants one.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“We have everything figured out,” Bhat says. “Only the car is missing.”<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/aayushipratap/"></a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/aayushipratap/">Aayushi Pratap</a>. </p>


Billionaire Elon Musk Receives Axel Springer Award

Tesla’s India Fans Are Eager To Buy Elon Musk’s Cars, But Politics Is Getting In The Way


<h2 id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>The stock market reached new record highs again on Monday thanks to a positive third-quarter earnings season so far, with investors largely optimistic about upcoming results from Big Tech companies.</p>



<h2 id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 0.2% on Monday, while the S&amp;P 500 gained 0.5% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.9%.</p>



<p>Both the Dow and S&amp;P 500 closed at new record highs as the stock market’s winning streak continued on the back of positive third-quarter earnings.</p>



<p>Of the 117 companies in the S&amp;P 500 that have reported earnings so far, some 84% have posted results that were above expectations, according to data from Refinitiv.</p>



<p>While earnings season has been upbeat so far, investors are looking ahead to earnings from major technology companies this week, including Facebook, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple.</p>



<p>Shares of Facebook, which reports after the market close on Monday, fell earlier in the day before rising over 1% in afternoon trading; The company has been under pressure recently following the release of the ‘<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/10/25/here-are-the-biggest-facebook-papers-charges-zuckerberg-caves-to-communist-government-and-lets-celebrities-break-the-rules-more/">Facebook Papers</a>’ whistleblower documents.</p>



<p>Tesla stock, meanwhile, surged 12% to a new all-time high on Monday—bringing the company’s market value to more than $1 trillion—after Hertz&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/10/25/tesla-amasses-1-trillion-in-market-value-after-hertz-places-biggest-electric-vehicle-order-ever/?sh=6366c038156e">announced</a>&nbsp;it placed the company’s biggest order ever and bought 100,000 Tesla cars.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 id="h-big-number-26-billion">BIG NUMBER: $26 BILLION</h2>



<p>That’s how much Elon Musk’s net worth&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/10/25/elon-musk-is-nearly-14-billion-richer-after-hertz-order-pushes-tesla-stock-to-record-levels/?sh=5d56b6ef7248">jumped</a>&nbsp;on Monday as Tesla shares skyrocketed. With a net worth of $255.8 billion, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>’ estimates, the Tesla cofounder and CEO is the richest person on the planet—worth more than any billionaire&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;has ever tracked.</p>



<h2 id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND:</h2>



<p>The major averages have all registered strong gains so far this month, with the Dow and S&amp;P both up more than 5%, while the Nasdaq has gained more than 4%.</p>



<h2 id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE:</h2>



<p>Despite supply-chain concerns and labor shortages, the “rising tide of earnings is lifting all the boats and adding fuel to the bull market fire,” says Anu Gaggar, global investment strategist at Commonwealth Financial Network.</p>



<h2 id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR:</h2>



<p>“There could be more gains to come in the final two months of the year,” predicts Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist for LPL Financial. “Seasonal tailwinds, improving market internals, and clear signs of a peak in the Delta variant all provide potential fuel for equities heading into year-end.”</p>



<h2 id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING:</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/10/25/tesla-amasses-1-trillion-in-market-value-after-hertz-places-biggest-electric-vehicle-order-ever/?sh=6366c038156e">Tesla Hits $1 Trillion In Market Value After Hertz Places Biggest Electric Vehicle Order Ever</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/10/25/pinterest-shares-plummet-12-after-paypal-ends-rumors-of-a-45-billion-deal/">Pinterest Shares Plummet 12% After PayPal Ends Rumors Of A $45 Billion Deal</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/10/22/heres-why-facebook-twitter-and-google-shares-are-sinking-even-as-the-market-sits-near-record-highs/">Here’s Why Facebook, Twitter And Google Shares Are Sinking Even As The Market Sits Near Record Highs</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/10/25/here-are-the-biggest-facebook-papers-charges-zuckerberg-caves-to-communist-government-and-lets-celebrities-break-the-rules-more/">Here Are The Biggest ‘Facebook Papers’ Charges: Zuckerberg Caves To Communist Government And Lets Celebrities Break The Rules, More</a> (<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Sergei Klebnikov, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk Betting On Tesla IPO To Fund Electric Car Maker

Stocks Close At Record Highs After Tesla Hits $1 Trillion In Market Value


<p>Tesla’s robust deliveries of electric Model Ys and 3s helped the Elon Musk-led carmaker post record net income of $1.6 billion in the third quarter, despite component sourcing headaches that have slowed the entire global auto industry, as it prepares to open massive new plants in Germany and Texas.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The&nbsp;<a href="https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/TWPKBV_TSLA_Q3_2021_Quarterly_Update_SI1AKE.pdf?xseo=&amp;response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%22TSLA-Q3-2021-Quarterly-Update.pdf%22" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">company said</a>&nbsp;earnings per share for the three months that ended on September 30 rose more than fourfold from a year ago to $1.44 on a GAAP basis or to $2.09, excluding certain items. Consensus analyst expectations were for $1.67. Quarterly revenue was $13.8 billion, up 57% from a year ago and in line with analysts’ expectations of as much as $13.9 billion. Sales regulatory credits to other automakers, a long-time source of free money, dropped 30% to $279 million.</p>



<p>“We were also able to achieve an annualized production run rate of over 1 million cars toward the end of the quarter. That increase in production rate has primarily been driven by further ramping of the Model Y at our Shanghai factory,” Tesla CFO Zack Kirkhorn said during an earnings call. Still, “due to part shortages and logistics variability we have not been able to run our factories at full capacity.”</p>



<p>The company is in a transition phase this year as it prepares to dramatically boost global production. Tesla is awaiting approval in Germany to begin building vehicles at its new Giga Berlin factory and also will soon begin production at its Gigafactory Texas near Austin. The addition of both facilities should boost its global production footprint by more than 50% in 2022.</p>



<p>“We believe the current supply chain issues have taken roughly 40,000 cars off the annual numbers for Tesla,” Dan Ives, an equity analyst with Wedbush Securities, said in a research note. “Despite this dynamic Musk &amp; Co. should near the 900,000 mark for 2021 with a 1.3 million to 1.4 million unit bogey for 2022.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Tesla previously reported&nbsp;<a href="https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-q3-2021-vehicle-production-deliveries" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">delivering 241,300 vehicles</a>&nbsp;worldwide in the quarter, the most ever, and built 237,823 cars at its plants in California and China. So far this year the company, which is shifting its headquarters to Austin, Texas, has delivered 627,427 vehicles to global customers.</p>



<p>The company’s Fremont, California, plant, which built more than 430,000 EVs in the last four quarters, currently can produce as many as 600,000 units. Meanwhile, its new Shanghai, China, plant, a major source of vehicle exports, accounted for much of the volume growth during the quarter. Tesla estimates it can produce more than 450,000 Model 3s and Ys annually.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“China is the star of the show after headwinds earlier this year,” said Ives, who has an Outperform rating and $1,000 target price on Tesla shares.</p>



<p>Still, during the quarter Tesla said it “saw a continuation of global supply chain, transportation and other manufacturing challenges. We continue to run our production lines as close to full capacity as conditions allow.”</p>



<p>The company expects final approval to begin German production of the Model Y before the end of the year, though high-volume output will takes months to achieve, Kirkhorn said. The Austin plant will also initially build Model Ys and, eventually, the polarizing Cybertruck electric pickup.</p>



<p><strong>A Musk-less Results Call</strong></p>



<p>Notably, Musk didn’t participate in the earnings call with analysts (as he said would likely be the case earlier this year). Earlier in the week he lashed out on Twitter at Duke University professor of engineering and computer science Missy Cummings, who’s been tapped to serve as a senior adviser to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency that regulates automotive rules. Cummings has pointed out shortcomings in Tesla’s Autopilot system and taken issues with its so-called Full Self-Driving feature.</p>



<p>“Objectively, her track record is extremely biased against Tesla,”&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1450653942938054656?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Musk tweeted</a>&nbsp;to his 61 million followers. Cummings responded that she’s happy to sit down and with him anytime.</p>



<p>During the earnings call, however, Tesla executives said they supported NHTSA’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2021/08/16/us-launches-broad-investigation-into-tesla-autopilot-over-numerous-crashes/?sh=a72aeda58b59">increased scrutiny of its partially automated</a>&nbsp;driving system, while avoiding any comment on Musk’s tweets.</p>



<p>“We expect and embrace the scrutiny of these products and know that the truth about their performance and the innovations our products have will ultimately be all that matters,” said Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of engineering.</p>



<p>Kirkhorn, in a very non-Musk response, said NHTSA’s review “is a great thing” for Tesla.</p>



<p>The stock was little changed in Nasdaq trading on Wednesday, rising 0.2% to close at $865.80.&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;estimates Musk’s net worth, as Tesla’s biggest shareholder, is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=32792d197999">$219.9 billion</a>.</p>



<p>&nbsp;<strong><em>By Alan Ohnsman, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


GERMANY-AUTOMOBILE-TESLA-MUSK

Tesla Notches Record $1.6 Billion Quarterly Net As It Readies Global Production Push


<p>Tesla, born in Silicon Valley in the early 2000s, is moving its headquarters to Texas where the electric-car maker’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk already lives, though it will continue building vehicles in the San Francisco Bay Area.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Musk made the announcement Thursday evening at the company’s annual shareholders meeting, held at Tesla’s nearly complete Texas Gigafactory near Austin. He didn’t specify the precise timing of when the current headquarters in Palo Alto would close, though the move is not entirely unexpected.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“To be clear though, we will be continuing to expand our activities in California,” Musk said. “This is not a matter of Tesla leaving California. Our intention is to actually increase output from Fremont and from a gig in Nevada by 50%.”</p>



<p>Though California remains Tesla’s biggest market in the U.S. and largest source of vehicle production, Musk has soured on the state in recent years, most notably after health officials in Alameda County, where the company&#8217;s Fremont factory is located, set restrictions to protect worker safety and health during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Musk, whose views have grown more libertarian over the years, moved to Austin in 2020.</p>



<p>California Governor Gavin Newsom, a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-gavin-newsom-tax-returns-20170509-htmlstory.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tesla owner</a>, had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/19/gavin-newsom-not-worried-about-elon-musk-moving-tesla-from-california.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told CNBC</a>&nbsp;in May 2020 interview that he wasn’t “concerned about Elon leaving anytime soon” after Musk initially threatened to do so.</p>



<p>Yet Musk has increasingly bristled at strict rules in California while warming to the appeal of cheaper, less-regulated Texas. In September, after the state passed a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/09/02/biden-vows-action-against-texas-abortion-ban-with-whole-of-government-effort/?sh=2426ab856acf">strict abortion law</a>, and following its tighter rules on voting and loosening of gun regulations, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the billionaire entrepreneur “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2021/09/02/elon-musk-likes-the-social-policies-in-texas-according-to-governor-amid-abortion-furor/?sh=2ec74fea6649">likes the social policies</a>” there.</p>



<p>“California is the birthplace of innovation, the 5th largest economy in the world and home to the biggest ideas and companies on the planet—that success is not despite our progressive policies, but because of them,” said Erin Mellon, a spokesperson for Newsom.</p>



<p>“We stand up for our workers, public health, and a woman’s right to choose. These are California’s fundamental values, and we’ll continue creating more jobs than any other state, outpacing the nation’s economic recovery, and maintaining the lowest COVID-19 case rates in the country,” she said.</p>



<p>Tesla’s headquarters move is the first by an automaker in the state since Toyota similarly announced plans to move its North American headquarters from suburban Los Angeles to suburban Dallas.&nbsp;Electric vehicle startups Lucid Motors, Fisker Inc. and Rivian currently are based in California.</p>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fspecials-images.forbesimg.com%2Fimageserve%2F615f80929b080124edd0d297%2FTesla-leaving-california-for-texas%2F0x0.jpg%3FcropX1%3D78%26cropX2%3D1521%26cropY1%3D0%26cropY2%3D752" alt="Tesla-leaving-california-for-texas"/><figcaption>Tesla&#8217;s Texas Gigafactory is to begin vehicle production by the end of 2021.&nbsp;<small>TESLA</small></figcaption></figure></div>



<p>“We believe this was a smart strategic move for Tesla as the company is aggressively building out its Austin footprint and over time with Cybertruck and more Model 3/Y production Musk is now doubling down on its Texas footprint with capacity ramping into 2022,” Daniel Ives, an equity analyst for Wedbush Securities, said in a research note. “While Fremont will continue to be a key for Tesla around Model 3 production, we believe this was the first step towards Tesla making Austin its domestic and global foundational location over the coming decade with its recent frustration with California officials likely accelerating this move.”</p>



<p>Among the issues Musk cited were the company’s need for additional space, expensive home prices in the Bay Area and long commutes for workers.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“We’re here in Austin and our factory is like five minutes from the airport, 15 minutes from downtown,” Musk said. “We&#8217;re going to create an ecological paradise here on the Colorado River. It’s gonna be great.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>Tesla shares rose 1.4% in Nasdaq trading on Thursday to $793.61.</p>



<p><strong><em>By Alan Ohnsman, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


gettyimages-490597722-594×594

Musk Is Moving Tesla’s Headquarters From California To Texas


<p><strong>It’s been a rollercoaster year among the very wealthiest, with Musk, Jeff Bezos and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault all vying for the number one spot.</strong></p>



<p>Athree-way race for the title of wealthiest person in the world intensified Thursday as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/">Elon Musk</a>, worth an estimated $177.4 billion at the day’s end, overtook French luxury magnate&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bernard-arnault/">Bernard Arnault</a>&nbsp;for second place. Arnault, who held pole position to start the week, got nearly $21 billion poorer over the past two days as LVMH shares tumbled 12.6%. That led to Amazon founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/">Jeff Bezos</a>&nbsp;reclaiming the top spot with a fortune estimated at $185.5 billion.</p>



<p>It’s been a rollercoaster year atop the billionaire ranks. Since January, the three have periodically jockeyed for the lead on&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>’&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/">real-time tracker</a>&nbsp;of the world’s richest people, with each coming out on top—and losing the title—multiple times over the past eight months.</p>



<p>The constant shuffling is unusual. Over the first three decades after&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;began tracking billionaires’ net worths in 1987, only six people held the title of world’s richest person. In the early years, two Japanese real estate moguls—Yoshiaki Tsutsumi and Taikichiro Mori—topped the list, until&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/">Bill Gates</a>&nbsp;came along in the late 1990s. From 1997 to 2017, Gates dominated the list, save for a single year when&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/warren-buffett/">Warren Buffett</a>&nbsp;took the top spot (2008) and a three-year stint when Mexico’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/carlos-slim-helu/">Carlos Slim Helu</a>&nbsp;wrested the title (2010 through 2013). (Spanish retailer&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/amancio-ortega/">Amancio Ortega</a>&nbsp;also grabbed the top spot for a few hours in 2015, and a couple days in 2016.)&nbsp;</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<h3 id="h-race-to-the-top">RACE TO THE TOP</h3>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="750" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Screenshot-2021-08-20-at-13.39.52-1024x750.png" alt="" class="wp-image-52223" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Screenshot-2021-08-20-at-13.39.52-1024x750.png 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Screenshot-2021-08-20-at-13.39.52-300x220.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Screenshot-2021-08-20-at-13.39.52-768x563.png 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Screenshot-2021-08-20-at-13.39.52-1536x1125.png 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Screenshot-2021-08-20-at-13.39.52.png 1540w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption>Forbes.com</figcaption></figure>



<p>In recent years, the longtime Microsoft chief, has found himself firmly outside the top three thanks to gifts of stock to his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, transfers of at least $5 billion worth of shares in public companies to his ex-wife&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/melinda-french-gates/">Melinda French Gates</a>—and the meteoric rise of Bezos, Musk and Arnault.</p>



<p>Since early 2017—when Gates topped the World’s Billionaires list with an $86 billion net worth—Bezos has added more than $110 billion to his fortune on the back of skyrocketing Amazon stock, Arnault has ridden LVMH shares’ 225% climb to more than quadruple his net worth and Musk has had the steepest climb in history, gaining more than $150 billion in four years as Tesla has become the most valuable carmaker on the planet.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<h2 id="h-jeff-bezos"><strong>Jeff Bezos</strong></h2>



<h3 id="h-net-worth-185-2-billion">Net worth: $185.2 billion</h3>



<h3 id="h-gain-in-past-12-months-6-6-billion">Gain in past 12 months: $6.6 billion</h3>



<h3 id="h-weeks-this-year-ended-at-no-1-26">Weeks this year ended at No. 1: 26</h3>



<p>Bezos, the longtime Amazon CEO and now executive chairman, has been the world’s richest for most of 2021. Bezos began the year in first place and, after briefly dropping to No. 2, he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2021/01/16/jeff-bezos-once-again-the-worlds-richest-person-after-rollercoaster-week/">regained the No.1 spot</a>&nbsp;for about four months from mid-January until May. Bezos&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2021/06/10/after-two-weeks-at-no-2-jeff-bezos-is-once-again-the-richest-person-in-the-world/">returned to the top spot</a>&nbsp;on June 10, and maintained the lead for 50 days before losing footing when Amazon announced disappointing quarterly earnings in late July, which wiped $13.9 billion from his net worth in a single day. Even as Amazon’s stock continues to falter, an even shakier performance by the stock of Arnault’s LVMH helped Bezos to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2021/08/18/jeff-bezos-again-richest-person-in-world/">once again become the richest person</a>&nbsp;on Wednesday.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<h2 id="h-elon-musk"><strong>Elon Musk</strong></h2>



<h3 id="h-net-worth-177-1-billion">Net worth: $177.1 billion</h3>



<h3 id="h-gain-in-past-12-months-110-9-billion">Gain in past 12 months: $110.9 billion</h3>



<h3 id="h-weeks-this-year-ended-at-no-1-1">Weeks this year ended at No. 1: 1</h3>



<p>Musk’s fortune has grown by more than $100 billion in one year, thanks to an extraordinary rise in the stock price of electric vehicle maker Tesla. After a brief drop at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, shares rocketed in subsequent months. On January 8, 2021—with Tesla shares up more than 1,000% from the pandemic-period low—Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/01/08/elon-musk-is-now-the-richest-person-in-the-world-officially-surpassing-jeff-bezos/">first became</a>&nbsp;the world’s richest person, overtaking Bezos. For about a week, the two&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/01/11/elon-musk-falls-to-second-richest-person-in-the-world-after-his-fortune-drops-nearly-14-billion-in-one-day/">traded places</a>&nbsp;on a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/01/12/elon-musk-is-back-at-no-1-richest-person-in-the-world-after-tesla-stock-rebounds/">near-daily</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/01/13/elon-musk-falls-to-worlds-second-richest-person/">basis</a>, but as Tesla stock began to fall, Bezos solidified his position once again. Musk, meanwhile, was overtaken by Arnault and dropped down to third place for months beginning in April.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<h2 id="h-bernard-arnault">Bernard<strong>&nbsp;Arnault</strong></h2>



<h3 id="h-net-worth-173-2-billion">Net worth: $173.2 billion</h3>



<h3 id="h-gain-in-past-12-months-61-9-billion">Gain in past 12 months: $61.9 billion</h3>



<h3 id="h-weeks-this-year-ended-at-no-1-6">Weeks this year ended at No. 1: 6</h3>



<p>Through <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2019/10/31/the-100-billion-man-how-bernard-arnault-stitched-together-the-worlds-third-biggest-fortune-with-louis-vuitton-dior-and-77-other-brandsand-why-hes-not-done-yet/">predatory instinct</a>, Arnault has built a luxury empire that is the largest company in Europe by market capitalization. His LVMH owns dozens of brands, including fashion mainstay Louis Vuitton, alcohol producer Hennessy and cosmetics retailer Sephora. Earlier this year, LVMH completed a $15.8 billion acquisition of jeweler Tiffany &amp; Co., victorious after a contentious saga that began with an unsolicited takeover bid. Arnault <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2021/05/21/french-luxury-tycoon-bernard-arnault-is-now-tied-with-jeff-bezos-for-richest-person-in-the-world/">first became the world’s richest person</a> in May and, after <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2021/05/24/bernard-arnault-becomes-worlds-richest-person-as-lvmh-stock-rises/">some days</a> of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2021/05/27/bernard-arnault-becomes-the-richest-person-in-the-world-for-the-third-time-this-week/">jostling</a>, he managed to hold Bezos off for about two weeks. When shares in Amazon fell in late July, Arnault <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2021/07/30/bernard-arnault-once-again-the-worlds-richest-person-after-jeff-bezos-loses-nearly-14-billion-in-one-day/">reclaimed the number one position</a> and held on for most of August, before threats of Chinese wealth redistribution tanked European luxury stocks and caused Arnault’s fortune to plunge by more than $20 billion this week.</p>



<p><strong><em>By Kenrick Cai, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk Visits Site Of New Tesla Gigafactory In Germany

Elon Musk Is Now The Second Richest Person In The World


<p>Elon Musk was in court in Delaware last week defending his role in Tesla’s acquisition of failing solar panel installer SolarCity in 2016. That questionable decision – SolarCity was founded by his cousins; Musk was its biggest shareholder and served on the board of both companies – triggered a shareholder lawsuit. Of course, not all of Musk’s misguided notions land him in Delaware Chancery Court, but many don’t pan out precisely as planned. “If I wasn’t optimistic I don’t think I would have started an electric car company or a rocket company,” <a href="https://twitter.com/WillOremus/status/1415012678020513794?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">he told the court</a>.In the case of the $2.6 billion SolarCity deal, the solar roof revolution he predicted in 2016 hasn’t materialized. But neither has an affordably priced Tesla, an all-electric semi, a robotaxi network or next-gen low-cost, high-capacity batteries. Ahead of a ruling in the SolarCity case, here’s a roundup of some of Musk’s bigger swings – and misses – from the last five years.  </p>



<h2 id="h-35-000-model-3"><strong>$35,000 Model 3</strong></h2>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51852" width="379" height="252" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1008732814-2048x1366.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 379px) 100vw, 379px" /><figcaption>The general assembly of the Tesla Model 3 at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, on Thursday, July 26, 2018. (Photo by Mason Trinca for The Washington Post via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



<h4 id="h-the-35-00-price-point-was-touted-for-years-as-the-model-3-s-key-appeal-no-longer-just-a-auto-for-the-rich-telsa-would-finally-make-a-mass-market-car-but-after-model-3-went-into-production-it-was-only-available-at-that-price-intermittently-before-being-scrubbed-currently-the-cheapest-version-starts-at-40-000-and-after-taxes-registration-and-add-ons-usually-sells-for-closer-to-50-000-meanwhile-starting-prices-for-tesla-s-bigger-model-s-and-x-have-risen-to-85-000-and-95-000-respectively-and-they-really-cost-more-than-100-000-with-options-taxes-and-delivery-charges">The $35,00 price point was touted for years as the Model 3’s key appeal. No longer just a auto for the rich, Telsa would finally make a mass-market car. But after Model 3 went into production it was only available at that price intermittently before being scrubbed. Currently the cheapest version starts at $40,000 and after taxes, registration and add-ons usually sells for closer to $50,000. Meanwhile, starting prices for Tesla’s bigger Model S and X have risen to $85,000 and $95,000, respectively, and they really cost more than $100,000 with options, taxes and delivery charges.</h4>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fspecials-images.forbesimg.com%2Fimageserve%2F60e8c1aec3268da90bbd4e49%2F0x0.jpg%3FcropX1%3D820%26cropX2%3D3181%26cropY1%3D0%26cropY2%3D2362" alt="Tesla-Semi_IR_8219-14-Courtesy Tesla" width="-471" height="-471"/><figcaption>TESLA</figcaption></figure></div>



<h2><strong><br>Tesla Semi</strong></h2>



<h4>Musk’s ambitions go beyond passenger vehicles and in November 2017 he unveiled his futuristic electric truck, promising it would go 500 miles per charge and be available around the end of 2019. As of July 2021, Tesla hasn’t announced a firm launch date or production site for the Semi and in June Jerome Guillen, the long-time head of the truck program, unexpectedly resigned.</h4>



<h2><strong>Tesla Roadster</strong></h2>



<h4>Unveiled in November 2017 along with the Semi, Musk said the Roadster would arrive in 2020, be the fastest production car ever made and go as far as 620 miles per charge. The anticipated tech wonder is expected to cost about $200,000 but there’s no firm launch date. </h4>



<h2><strong>Tesla Giga Berlin</strong></h2>



<h4>Musk wanted Tesla’s first European battery CK plant to open in July 2021. While much of the physical construction is complete, the plant lacks regulatory approval to begin operations, has stoked opposition from local environmentalists and faces fines related to water and sewerage issues. The current hope is that the plant will be open by early 2022.</h4>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51854" width="697" height="465" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/GettyImages-1270253742-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 697px) 100vw, 697px" /><figcaption>2: A sign marks Tesla Strasse (Tesla Street) at the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin on September 02, 2020 near Gruenheide, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



<h2><strong>Tesla Full Self Driving&nbsp;</strong></h2>



<p>In October 2016 Musk announced that all Teslas were being built with the necessary computing power, sensors and cameras to allow them to eventually operate autonomously. At that time, he estimated that Full Self Driving capability would arrive in two to three years. The $10,000 feature, an enhancement of the company’s Autopilot system, was released in beta form in July, but after a series of horrific, fatal accidents Tesla now warns drivers that it “<a href="https://twitter.com/tesla_raj/status/1413764413165772803" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">may do the wrong thing at the worst time</a>” and that they need to use it with “additional caution”–suggesting that it isn’t ready for primetime.</p>



<h3><strong>Tesla Robotaxi Network</strong></h3>



<p>Musk said at Tesla’s Autonomy Day in October 2019 that by the end of 2020 “for sure, we will have over a million robotaxis on the road. … The fleet wakes up with an over-the-air update. That&#8217;s all it takes.” As a result of that capability, Tesla owners would be able to earn money from their vehicles by making them available for an autonomous, on-demand ride service the company would oversee. That hasn’t happened and there’s no indication that will be possible–or legal– in the near term.</p>



<h3><strong>Tesla Next-Generation Battery Cells</strong></h3>



<p>Musk touted a larger, beer-can size 4680 lithium battery cell in September 2020 that he claimed would be 56% cheaper and have five times the energy of the company’s current cells. He said pilot production of small batches at a lab in Silicon Valley was underway and that the company might be able to scale up to high-volume production within a year or two. Timing for production is unclear, but delays in manufacturing the cell appear to be part of the problem with launching Tesla’s Semi and Roadster. </p>



<h3><strong>Tesla Solar Production And Jobs&nbsp;</strong></h3>



<p>New York spent $950 million to build and equip a solar panel factory in Buffalo that SolarCity had big plans for. In exchange for the state’s generosity, the company was to create at least 1,460 jobs there. The future looked promising after Tesla purchased SolarCity in late 2016 and in December of that year Tesla said it “entered into a long-term agreement with Panasonic to manufacture photovoltaic cells at our Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York, with negotiated pricing provisions and the intent to manufacture 1 gigawatt of solar panels annually.” But in the years since, output of panels at the plant has been unclear. In 2020 Tesla reported delivering just 205 megawatts of solar panels, a quarter of what SolarCity installed in 2016. Tesla has also had difficulty maintaining the required headcount at the factory. Panasonic abandoned the facility last year, further reducing employment at the facility. Tesla has been given numerous extensions by the state. As of Memorial Day, it had 1,058 employees at the plant, and has until the end of 2021 to meet the 1,460-worker target or pay a $41 million penalty.</p>



<p><strong><em>By Alan Ohnsman, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk’s Biggest Tesla Blunders Of The Last Five Years


<p><strong>The company will begin offering commercial spaceflights next year, with an eventual goal of multiple flights per day around the world.</strong></p>



<p>n Sunday, Virgin Galactic hit a crucial milestone on its road to make commercial space tourism a reality starting in 2022: sending a fully crewed ship to space that included founder and billionaire Richard Branson. But Branson won’t be leading the charge, as he plans to step back and focus on his charitable foundations. That leaves Michael Colglazier as the “steely-eyed missile man” in charge of the company’s mission.</p>



<p>As CEO of the space tourism company, it’s Colglazier’s job to get ready for paying customers, with shareholders looking over his shoulder to make sure he does. (Not to mention the over 600 people who’ve already bought spaceflight tickets &#8211; some of whom have been holding them for over a decade). His goal is to get the company to the point where it starts opening its doors to taking customers to space starting next year.</p>



<p>Despite the pressure, the former president and managing director of Disney Parks, who took the reins of the space tourism company in July of last year, is upbeat and chipper at the end of this long day that saw the company’s founder get to the stars. Sitting down in New Mexico’s spaceport, which was built by the state for the purpose of facilitating space tourist flights the way airports facilitate airlines, he emphasizes that what Virgin Galatic needs to deliver is more than just a spaceflight, amazing as the singular event is.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“Our product, what we give you is a lifelong memory,” Colglazier says. “And so our focus is on the experience so that your emotions are so powerful that the memory is impressed upon you in a way you talk about it your whole life.”</p>



<p>To that end, he explains Virgin Galactic’s ultimate aim is to have spaceports located all over the world, not just New Mexico, which can offer more than just a place to hitch a ride to space, but a place that can “inspire” people to want to make their own journey. “We’ll be collaborating with New Mexico to figure out how to build a broader experience around the spaceport,” he says. “And that’s the product we’ll take to other locales.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Doing that, he says, means operating at a near-daily cadence of spaceflights from every location it operates from, which will require a massive increase in the company’s manufacturing capacity. He estimates that each spaceport his company operates in will need “high single digit to low double digit” numbers of spaceships, along with multiple motherships needed to carry the spacecraft to altitude.</p>



<p>“We’re talking 400 flights a year for every spaceport we operate,” he says. “So we have to build a fleet. How many ships we need is going to depend on how quickly we can turn them around” for future spaceflights, he says. Something the company won’t be sure about until it’s done more tests with its next generation of spacecraft, the first of which has been built and is undergoing testing now.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large"><p>“You saw the elegance of it, you saw how gracefully it goes,” says Colgrzier of the Unity launch. “It&#8217;s a ballet and it acrobatically moves to purposely give you this amazing view of the planet.”</p></blockquote>



<p>It’s also something that will happen with some competition. In just a few days, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin is sending its founder to space on a test flight, and that company also plans on offering rides to customers. Colglazier says the market right now is way too big to worry about competition. However, he does then point out that Virgin’s experience is quite different from Blue Origin’s, starting with the fact that Virgin’s spacecraft are carried by plane while its competitor will lift customers up on a traditional rocket.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“We take off horizontally, and we believe there&#8217;s great value to that,” he says, describing how Virgin’s carrier planes take its spacecraft to around 45-50,000 feet before releasing them to rocket the rest of the way to space. “And you saw the elegance of it, you saw how gracefully it goes. It&#8217;s a ballet and it acrobatically moves to purposely give you this amazing view of the planet. ”</p>



<p>Getting to the point where the company can offer its “elegant” experience will likely be quite capital intensive. The company announced this morning that it’s selling an additional $500 million in shares. In a report published earlier this year, Morgan Stanley estimated the company likely won’t see positive free cash flow until 2028, though Colglazier dismisses that by saying “there are many financial models out there, and they range a lot because people are missing the data. Today will be a nice proof point of that.”</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fspecials-images.forbesimg.com%2Fimageserve%2F60ec998b6830238503a22689%2F1960x0.jpg%3Ffit%3Dscale" alt="Sirisha Bandla looks out the window at Earth while in zero-g."/><figcaption>While on the Unity 22 flight, Virgin Galactic VP Sirisha Bandla also conducted a scientific experiment.&nbsp;<small>VIRGIN GALACTIC</small></figcaption></figure>



<p>Virgin’s got other ways of bringing money in to build out its vision, too. Colglazier says the company intends to open up more spaceflight ticket sales in the summer or fall (it previously stopped offering tickets in 2013). It will also be using its suborbital spaceflights as a platform for scientific research. On Sunday’s flight with Richard Branson, company VP Sirisha Bandla was busy conducting a research experiment for Virgin customer the University of Florida. Research experiments, he says, can bring in around $600,000 per flight.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Ultimately, Colglazier says, his company will spend the next few years focused on building up and scaling out both its customer experiences and its research business, and then tackle other opportunities as they come. “We now have a really interesting organization and company that you would imagine could do other things,” he says. “But we want to make sure we get the economic engine moving first.” </p>



<p><em><strong>By Alex Knapp, Forbes Staff</strong></em></p>


Sir Richard Branson Rings Opening Bell As Virgin Galactic Holdings Joins NYSE

Virgin Galactic CEO Explains What’s Next After Billionaire Richard Branson’s Successful Spaceflight


<p><strong>After promising to sell nearly everything he owned last year including six mansions in California, Tesla’s billionaire CEO has taken up residence in a studio-apartment sized rental – here’s what it looks like inside and out.</strong></p>



<p>If you’re looking for the world’s third-richest person, you won’t find him living among the billionaires. After selling off most of his real estate assets and moving to Texas in the past year, Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1402718368633745410?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">revealed</a> in early June that he now only owns one house (in the Bay Area)—and that his primary residence is a tiny box house that he says he rents from his rocket company, SpaceX. </p>



<p>The house, which is around 400 square feet, is located in Boca Chica, Texas, where SpaceX produces its Starships. Musk, who has a net worth of $169.8 billion according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>, rents a “<a href="https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/elon-musk-texas-house-boca-chica-16278768.php" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">foldable, prefabricated home</a>” made by Boxabl, a housing startup company. The house, which Musk tweeted sells for about $50,000, typically has a setup akin to a small studio apartment: One large room partitioned into a living room area, bedroom area, kitchen and bathroom. In contrast to many other billionaires who own lavish mansions, Musk lives in an easily transportable 20&#215;20 foot unit.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“It’s kinda awesome though,” Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1402718368633745410?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a> on Twitter last month.</p>



<p>The 50-year-old mogul&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1256239554148724737?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">first announced</a>&nbsp;plans to sell all of his homes and most of his possessions last year, in response to criticism of his massive wealth. Musk has now nearly made good on his promise to do so,selling six of his seven properties.</p>



<p>“Only house I own is the events house in the Bay Area. If I sold it, the house would see less use, unless bought by a big family, which might happen someday,” Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1402718368633745410?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;on Twitter last month.&nbsp;</p>



<p>A few days later, he&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1404336639938154497?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">confirmed</a>&nbsp;he had put it up for sale: “Decided to sell my last remaining house. Just needs to go to a large family who will live there. It’s a special place.”</p>



<p>The 47-acre property is located in Hillsborough, California—around halfway between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The “over 100-year-old mansion” is a 16,000 square foot house that boasts nine bedrooms and ten bathrooms. It’s the last piece of real estate that Musk owns: He has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/891-Crystal-Springs-Rd_Hillsborough_CA_94010_M24423-37895" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">listed</a>&nbsp;it on the market for $37.5 million, having originally bought it for $23.4 million in 2017.</p>



<p>Musk has offloaded his Los Angeles real estate in the past year, often at slim profit margins—if any. He&nbsp;<a href="https://nypost.com/article/elon-musks-houses-homes-sold/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sold</a>&nbsp;his first mansion, located on Chalon Road, for $29 million in June 2020; he had purchased it for $17 million in 2012.&nbsp;</p>



<p>In October, he sold a 2,700 square foot ranch-style house that used to belong to Willy Wonka actor Gene Wilder for $7 million (Musk bought it for $6.75 million in 2013), with the&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1256255619239038977?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stipulation</a>&nbsp;that the house “cannot be torn down or lose any [of] its soul.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>In December, Musk sold&nbsp;<a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/real-estate/story/2020-12-30/elon-musk-sells-three-bel-air-homes-for-a-combined-40-9-million" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">four Bel Air properties</a>&nbsp;for a combined $61.89 million; He originally spent nearly $55 million on those properties, purchasing them between 2015 and 2019. Overall, Musk has made an estimated profit of $19.2 million on his six home sales over the past year.</p>



<p>Musk’s offloading of real estate comes after a battle with the state of California. The billionaire criticized the state’s coronavirus-related restrictions on operations at the Tesla factory in the Bay Area last year—<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/05/20/tesla-drops-lawsuit-against-alameda-county-over-factory-reopening/?sh=766e1f59c1bf">leading to a lawsuit</a> that Tesla later dropped—and also claimed that the state takes entrepreneurs for granted. In early December 2020, Musk <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elanagross/2020/12/08/elon-musk-confirms-hes-moving-from-california-to-texas/?sh=421191e44948">confirmed</a> that he was moving to Texas, citing the fact that two of his biggest projects—Tesla’s new factory and a SpaceX facility-are located there.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Starbase, Texas <a href="https://t.co/mt4IpqqmjF">pic.twitter.com/mt4IpqqmjF</a></p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1368915472142401540?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 8, 2021</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<p>It remains unclear whether Musk is renting any other houses in Austin, though. It’s also unknown if he stays with his girlfriend, 32-year-old singer Grimes (who&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/Grimezsz/status/1362064129377394694?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">lives</a>&nbsp;in Austin) and their 10-month-old child, X AE A-XII. Musk has five other children with his first wife, Justine Wilson, but it’s unclear where they live.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fspecials-images.forbesimg.com%2Fimageserve%2F60df37ed215a75b9afaa4e5b%2F0x0.jpg%3Ffit%3Dscale" alt="Musk Somera II by Fererico Winer for Forbes"/><figcaption>Somera Street Elon&#8217;s Homes from left to right 954 958 955&nbsp;<small>FEDERICO WINER FOR FORBES</small></figcaption></figure>



<h2 id="h-954-somera-rd-los-angeles">954 Somera Rd, Los Angeles</h2>



<h5 id="h-sold-december-22-2020-for-29-719-000">Sold December 22, 2020 for $29,719,000</h5>



<h5 id="h-purchased-september-30-2016-for-24-250-000"><strong>Purchased September 30, 2016 for $24,250,000</strong></h5>



<h2 id="h-955-somera-rd-los-angeles">955 Somera Rd, Los Angeles</h2>



<h5 id="h-sold-december-22-2020-for-4-443-000">Sold December 22, 2020 for $4,443,000</h5>



<h5 id="h-purchased-july-10-2015-for-4-300-000"><strong>Purchased July 10, 2015 for $4,300,000</strong></h5>



<h2 id="h-958-somera-rd-los-angeles">958 Somera Rd, Los Angeles</h2>



<h5 id="h-sold-december-22-2020-for-6-774-500">Sold December 22, 2020 for $6,774,500</h5>



<h5 id="h-purchased-january-15-2019-for-6-400-000"><strong>Purchased January 15, 2019 for $6,400,000</strong></h5>



<h2><strong>10947 Chalon Rd, Los Angeles</strong></h2>



<h5><strong>Sold December 21, 2020 for&nbsp;</strong>$20,948,500</h5>



<h5><strong>Purchased July 28, 2015 for $20,000,000</strong></h5>



<h2><strong>10930 Chalon Rd, Los Angeles</strong></h2>



<h5>Sold October 8, 2020 for $7,000,000</h5>



<h5><strong>Purchased October 24, 2013 for $6,750,000</strong></h5>



<h2>10911 Chalon Rd, Los Angeles</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fspecials-images.forbesimg.com%2Fimageserve%2F60df2aafbd04bc615f446fdb%2F1960x0.jpg%3Ffit%3Dscale" alt="10911 Chalon Rd by Dylan Stewart-Newscom"/></figure>



<h5>Sold June 12, 2020 for $29,000,000</h5>



<h5><strong>Purchased December 21, 2012 for $17,000,000</strong> </h5>



<p><strong><em>By Sergei Klebnikov, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Tag: Elon Musk

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