Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Friday, March 13th.

Today on Forbes, the world's richest person.

No one has ever had a tighter grasp on the title of world's richest person than Elon

Musk does right now.

Since retaking the top spot on Forbes's annual World's Billionaires list from

French luxury goods tycoon Bernard Arnault of LVMH last year, Musk spent the past 12 months patting

his stats. He got $497 billion richer, the most wealth ever gained in a single year, and is now worth an estimated

$839 billion. That makes him more than three times richer than the second wealthiest person

on the planet, Google co-founder Larry Page, who is worth an estimated $257 billion.

Musk is now closer to becoming a trillionaire than giving up the number one spot.

It was a year of major milestones for Musk, who became the first person ever worth $500 billion in October. After he announced his resignation as head of President Trump's so-called Department

of Government Efficiency, known as Doge, to spend more time on Tesla in April, helping send

shares of the electric vehicle maker soaring by nearly 100% over the next five months.

Then, on December 15th, he crossed the $600 billion mark,

after his privately held rocket maker SpaceX launched a tender offer valuing the company at $800 billion,

up from $400 billion in August. Four days later, he became the first person ever worth $700 billion, after the Delaware Supreme

Court restored Tesla stock options currently worth $115 billion to Musk that had been voided

by a lower court in 2024.

Finally, in February, he crossed the $800 billion mark, after SpaceX acquired Musk's

X-A-I in a deal that boosted the valuation of the combined company to $1.25 trillion.

The merger valued X-AI at $250 billion, up from $113 billion, Musk claimed when he merged his AI startup with his

social media company, X, formerly Twitter, last March.

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