On Thursday, Tesla (+7.84) yesterday gained the market cap ($56bn) of nearly one GM or 1.6x Fords and in the process Elon Musk became the richest man in the world and has wealth ($194.8bn) which as Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid writes, is virtually identical to the GDP of Greece in 2020 (population 10.7MM) even if one is a stock and one a flow.
As the second chart from Reid shows, the pandemic has been kind to the finances of this elite group largely by dint of the type of businesses they run, or are associated with, and the huge liquidity injections into markets.
After the initial shock of the pandemic, an index of US billionaire wealth (second chart) has increased consistently and is now back 29% above where we were in February 2019 with the top 5 62% above.
As Reid observes, these are "remarkable numbers given the period we’ve been through" and concludes that "whether this attracts the attention of the new US administration will be an interesting thing to watch and something that could impact markets at some point given how big and important the companies that these people own are."...