Tesla hikes car prices in Europe

Forget about Black Friday, in Europe Tesla Inc’s prices in Europe have gone up not down. The Model S electric sedan has seen a price hike across Europe, according to a Reuters report, which details that in German the price has risen by 5,000 to 81,990 from 76,990. READ: Tesla's Musk promises 700km range cars soon, with 1,000km battery in development Similarly, this price rise is marked for customers in France and the United Kingdom. In Spain, the price increased by 2,000. Elsewhere, other reports claimed that the prices of the Model X sport utility vehicle and Model 3 vehicles have also increased. It comes as Tesla shares continue to soar - the car maker is up more than 500% in the year to date - which is driving Elon Musk up the billionaires list. Musk earlier this week moved up the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, to second place, overtaking Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Musk’s net worth now totals US$128bn, according to Bloomberg, up US$100bn in 2020 to date. It puts Musk over puts him only a sliver above Gates, who has been rapidly redeploying his wealth via the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (estimated to be worth over US$40bn). Musk is now only around US$50bn away from Amazon overlord Jeff Bezos who, according to Bloomberg, has seen his net worth rise US$67bn to US$182bn this year. In this particular league table, Tesla’s Musk has overtaken Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, each up US$16bn in 2020 to be worth US$78.7bn and US$81.3bn respectively, along with famed value investor Warren Buffett (worth US$86.8bn, down US$2bn), Facebook figurehead Mark Zuckerberg (worth US$102bn, up US$23bn) and fashion magnate Bernard Arnault (worth US$105bn, down US$737mln this year). Musk owns around 20% of Tesla shares, though he has lucrative performance-based stock incentives which are realised when Tesla’s market value exceeds certain thresholds.