Elon Musk now world’s third richest person, overtakes Mark Zuckerberg

Tesla and SpaceX head Elon Musk, 49, is now the world’s third-richest person. With a wealth of nearly $110 billion, he overtook Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg for the spot after skyrocketing Tesla stocks added $7.6 billion to Musk’s coffers over November 16 and 17, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The 15 percent stock boost for Tesla came as it was named for inclusion into the S&P 500 Index on November 16.

Based on its market value, the electric car maker would be one of the top 10 companies in the benchmark index upon entry. S&P Dow Jones Indices said Tesla would be one of the largest companies added to the S&P 500 in the past decade. The company said it was considering adding Tesla in two stages on December 14 and 21.

Tesla's inclusion in the widely-followed stock market index means investment funds indexed to the S&P 500 will have to sell about $51 billion worth of shares of companies already in the S&P 500 and use that money to buy shares of Tesla, so that their portfolios correctly reflect the index, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. Tesla will account for about 1 percent of the index.

SpaceX on the other hand successfully launched four astronauts into space for NASA on November 15 – these astronauts reached the International Space Station (ISS) on November 17.