Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk has officially overtaken his Amazon counterpart Jeff Bezos to become the world's wealthiest person, according to reports in the US media. 

Musk holds majority shares in the electric car company and his wealth has swollen substantially due to Tesla's ever surging share price in the last one year.  

Musk’s estimated net worth stands at $185 billion, according to CNBC. 

The outspoken CEO, who was born in South Africa, who heads Tesla, which is leading the motor world in the manufacture of electric vehicles as well as leading the airspace venture SpaceX. 

Tesla enjoyed a remarkable year in 2020 amid increased car production, new factories and quarter on quarter profits which pushed its shares up by more than 700 percent. 

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Tesla shares went up by 5.9 percent to $800.43 in trading late on Thursday morning and this pushed the company's market capitalisation to rise above $750 billion. 

And on Thursday, a Twitter account calling itself 'Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley' shared the news with Musk but all it got was a cynical response.

"How strange," the 49-year-old billionaire replied following it up with, "Well, back to work ..."

And this pinned tweet from October 12, 2018 summarises what Musk intends to do with his staggering wealth: