Elon Musk overtakes Amazon's Jeff Bezos to become world's wealthiest person

• The 49-year-old entrepreneur takes the top spot from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had held it since 2017.
  
• Elon Musk's net worth crossed $185bn (£136bn).
  
• Musk reacted to the news of the world’s richest person with tweets stating “how strange” and “well, back to work …”.

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has become the world's wealthiest person as his net worth surpassed $185bn (£136bn) after shares in the electric car company soared by 4.8% on Thursday.

The 49-year-old entrepreneur takes the top spot from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had held it since 2017.

Read more: Elon Musk reveals Apple boss snubbed takeover deal during Tesla's 'darkest days'

"Musk's electric car company Tesla has surged in value this year and hit a market value of $700bn (£516bn) for the first time on Wednesday. That makes the car company worth more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, GM, and Ford combined," read the news report published by BBC.

Musk reacted to the news of the world’s richest person with tweets stating “how strange” and “well, back to work …”

Back in November, Musk toppled Microsoft founder Bill Gates to become the world’s second-richest person.

"The 49-year-old entrepreneur’s net worth rose by $7.2bn (£5.4bn) to $127.9bn as the maverick chief executive of the electric car company is now ranked immediately behind the Amazon boss, Jeff Bezos," read the news report published in The Guardian.

Read more: Elon Musk topples Bill Gates to become world’s second richest person

Besides Tesla, the young entrepreneur also exhibits his interests in spacecraft as his company SpaceX sent four astronauts to the International Space Station last week.

SpaceX is about to launch 60 broadband internet satellites into orbit, after suffering delays due to poor weather conditions, the report highlighted.