Bezos back as world's richest man as Musk loses $4.6B

New Delhi, Feb 17 Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos is back as the world's richest person after Tesla shares fell, resulting in a slight erosion in Elon Musk' wealth.

Tesla shares were down 2.4 per cent on Tuesday and Musk lost $4.6 billion, slipping to the second position on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world's 500 wealthiest people.

Bezos returned as the world's richest man with a net worth of $191.2 billion.

Last month, Musk became the world's richest person, as his net worth crossed $185 billion after Tesla's share price increased.

He took the top spot from Bezos, who had held it since 2017.

Tesla has surged in value this year, and hit a market value of $700 billion last month, making the electric car maker worth more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, GM and Ford combined.

Musk's net worth increased by more than $150 billion and Tesla's share price surged a massive 743 per cent last year.

Tesla last week announced it has invested $1.5 billion in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.

The announcement led to a surge in the price of one Bitcoin, that has even surpassed $50,000 per coin.

Tesla said it will also "begin accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future."

After vouching for Bitcoin, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has now said that if major Dogecoin cryptocurrency holders sell their coins, he will give them his full support.

( With inputs from IANS )