The $36.2 billion (R532 billion) gain followed a surge in Tesla’s stock price after Hertz Global Holdings ordered 100,000 cars. Musk is increasingly pulling away from his fellow mega-billionaires when it comes to the size of his fortune. Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos ranks second with $193 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Tesla shares have climbed in recent weeks even before the Hertz deal. The auto maker’s stock price is up more 40% this year, almost double the gain of the SP 500 Index. A surge in Tesla stock isn’t the only source of wealth gains for Musk. The seventh tranche of Musk’s massive 2018 stock option package vested in the third quarter, adding about $8 billion to his net worth. Elon Musk’s soaring net worth now makes him more valuable than Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas companies.

To put South African born Musk’s wealth in context, it is interesting to look at how it compares to the value of South Africa’s largest companies. Naspers is South Africa’s largest company with a market cap of R1.14 trillion. Amplats is the second largest, with a market cap of R430 billion. Other top companies include Firstrand (R325 billion), MTN (R255 billion), Vodacom (R251 billion), Standard Bank (R226 billion), Capitec (R199 billion). The table below shows the value (market cap) of most of South Africa’s top companies. To put Musk’s wealth in perspective, he can buy all these companies and still have money left over.