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Earlier in the week, Elon Musk became the second-richest person in the world, passing Bill Gates.

Take your pick of news source – the BBC, Moneyweb, Sky News, Business Insider, the list goes on.

One source that wasn’t singing from that sheet is Forbes, running the headline ‘No, Elon Musk Is Not The Second Richest Person In The World — Here’s Why’.

The article is two days old, so some of the exact figures may be a touch dated, but their methodology remains the same.

Let’s get the crux of the argument out of the way:

Musk owns 21% of Tesla but has pledged more than half his stake as collateral for personal loans; Forbes applies a 25% discount to his shareholding to account for the loans. Musk’s net worth estimate includes $25 billion worth of options that he was awarded since May as part of  a historic 12-tranche compensation plan.

Musk became eligible for the fourth tranche in late October after Tesla exceeded the cumulative EBITDA requirement, but Tesla has yet to confirm in public filings that it has certified the results…

Until the receipt of the fourth tranche is confirmed, Forbes is only counting some 25 million options from the package towards Musk’s net worth.

Yeah, take that, Elon.

Then there’s also the matter of his SpaceX shares:

Musk also owns an estimated 48% of SpaceX, the rocket company that recently made its first launch with astronauts on board. Investors valued SpaceX at $46 billion in August. After applying Forbes’ 10% private company discount, Musk’s SpaceX stake is worth just under $20 billion.

A pittance, you might say.

Whilst it must be a nice little ego boost to climb the ranks of the world’s richest people, Musk says he’s not all that bothered.

When Forbes contacted him in July, asking questions related to calculating his net worth, Musk said “I really couldn’t care less”, adding “these numbers rise and fall, but what really matters is making great products that people love”.

Using Forbes’ real-time Billionaires Tracker, here’s where things currently stand by their metrics, correct as of 10:30AM local time:

Jeff Bezos sitting very pretty atop that list.

Meanwhile, Bill Gates loses $367 million, which sounds terrible, but accounts for just 0,31% of his total wealth.

You can follow the ebbs and flows of the world’s richest folks here, if you’re a sucker for punishment.

[sources:forbes&forbes]