Tesla shares, which performed poorly on the stock market throughout April, began to rise following a visit to China by the company's CEO, Elon Musk.
Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, made a surprise visit to China last week. With positive messages for full autonomous driving technology from China, Tesla moved one step closer to approval. This development boosted the company's market value, and Elon Musk's personal wealth increased by $36 billion.
Tesla shares, which had fallen by 22% since the beginning of the year, gained 12% yesterday.
Elon Musk completed his visit to China in less than 24 hours and left with an important victory for Tesla. After frantic meetings with senior officials in Beijing, the Chinese government gave a signal of approval for Tesla to launch its advanced driver assistance service.
Chinese officials told Tesla that they had temporarily approved the company's plan to launch the "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) software feature in the country.
Sources said that the US electric vehicle manufacturer would use mapping and navigation-based autonomous driving services provided by Chinese technology giant Baidu.
MOVED UP IN RANKINGS
Following this news, the performance of Tesla shares, which began to rise, also positively affected the wealth of Elon Musk, who owns 20.5% of the company. According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, Musk's wealth increased by $36 billion to $202 billion after his visit to China.
After this increase, Musk moved up one spot in the billionaires' list, surpassing Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, to third place.
In a challenging few months, Musk lost the title of the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer to Chinese BYD for a short period and laid off more than 10% of the company's global workforce earlier this month due to the decline in Tesla's shares.
Elon Musk, who has experienced the most significant erosion in wealth since the beginning of the year due to the decline in Tesla shares, had slipped to fourth place last week.
French luxury manufacturer Bernard Arnault leads the Billionaires Index with a wealth of $212 billion. Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos ranks second with a wealth of $203 billion.