The tycoon earned nearly $ 175 million in just the second consecutive day of surprising profits for investors in the auto industry.
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Despite the global economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the world’s richest people seem to be getting even richer. Last month, it emerged that since March 18, the top five wealthiest Americans – Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett and Larry Elison – had inflated their pockets at $ 75.5 billion, which represents 19% compared to previous figures.
This Tuesday, the fortune of Gates, who is already the world’s second richest person, received a further boost: His investment in the used car platform Vroom Inc. doubled on the company’s first day on the exchange, Bloomberg reports.
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Shares of Vroom, which sells pre-owned vehicles online, soared 118% and reached a unit price of $ 47.90, thus raising the value of Gates’ stake – through Cascade Investment – by approximately 6% , or more than 175 million dollars.
In this way, the Microsoft co-founder ended the day with a net worth of $ 115.1 billion, according to the ‘Bloomberg Billionaires’ index, a ranking of the 500 richest people in the world. He is only behind Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, whose fortune rose by $ 4.3 billion that day to reach $ 156.2 billion.
This is the second consecutive day of surprising returns for investors in the automotive industry. This Monday, the shares of one of Tesla Inc.’s biggest competitors, Nikola Corp., more than doubled: The hydrogen-powered truck maker made a further 8.8% profit, increasing the net worth of its founder Trevor Milton at $ 9.8 billion.
While demand for used cars has weakened during the pandemic, Vroom sold more units in March and April than in any other two-month period, according to reports. Last week, Nikola reported that pre-orders for its vehicles exceeded $ 10 billion and that it expects to start generating revenue in 2021, the outlet reports.
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