He's the richest man only because Telsa is a memestock.

Once people realize Tesla's value is high for the same basic reason FTX's was*, it'll normalize down to something a lot smaller.

* people put money in, and number go up; and because number go up, more people put more money in. All while paying lots of attention to the brand and the memes but without paying much attention to the fundamentals of the business

@Pwnallthethings Musk is toxic & overpaid but Tesla makes good (but not perfect) cars.
The EV revolution is accelerating & the stock price reflects that, along with legacy automakers slowness to go fully EV.
@Sandrew @Pwnallthethings the issue with the EV revolution accelerating, which Musk deserves credit for, is that multiple high end EV’s will hit the market soon. That doesn’t bode well for Tesla’s market share and stock price. The CEO alienating a significant portion of their customer base isn’t great for them either.
@matthewrodier @Pwnallthethings (As others have said) Tesla has big margins while several other carmakers are losing money on every EV they sell, plus Tesla are shipping lots of cars while other manufacturers EVs are relatively scarce, and Tesla aren't standing still so it'll be unlikely legacy carmakers can overtake anytime soon, if ever (factories for fossil fueled cars will largely be valueless assets, very soon).
(BTW, I drive an EV, but it's not a Tesla.)
@Sandrew @Pwnallthethings “…several other carmakers are losing money on every EV they sell...” do you have a source for that? And even if that is the case a lot of the costs they are incurring are related to them entering the market, retooling factories etc. Saying that factories for fossil fuel cars will be “valueless assets, very soon” is frankly a ridiculous statement. What’s stopping them from just converting them to produce EV’s?
@matthewrodier @Pwnallthethings I qualified my statement, body & interior is basically identical but drive-train (engine, transmission, etc.) factories will obviously be worthless.
If converting to making EVs was as simple as your question suggests, they would've done so already & there wouldn't be EV scarcity for legacy carmakers.
I hope they get their acts together, we need more EVs & choice.
@Sandrew
Those same factories can make motors and evs still need a transmission.
@matthewrodier @Pwnallthethings
@ChemicalTribe @matthewrodier @Pwnallthethings That's simplistic; an electric motor is totally different than an internal combustion engine, & most EVs don't use transmissions (you just run the motor faster or slower, even crawling to zero which an ICE can't do).
@Sandrew
It's different, but normal factories retool at the time. Look at a completed one and they look just like an ice. But yes, you don't need a multi speed transmission, but you still need one regardless.
@matthewrodier @Pwnallthethings