Elon Musk who has just become the world’s richest person with a net worth of over $185billion (£136bn) wants to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars in case the earth falls to disaster.

An older tweet by the Tesla chief and tech innovator offered insight into his thoughts on personal wealth and how he intends to spend his money

“About half my money is intended to help problems on Earth, and half to help establish a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure continuation of life (of all species) in case Earth gets hit by a meteor like the dinosaurs or WW3 happens and we destroy ourselves,” he had tweeted before his new fortune status.

At the beginning of last year, he was down in the pecking order of world richest persons but the Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur jumped many rungs into the top slot after Tesla’s share price increased on Thursday. It’s the difference a year can make.

He dethroned Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had held the position since 2017.

Mr Musk’s electric car company Tesla has surged in value this year, and hit a market value of $700bn (£516bn) for the first time on Wednesday.

That makes the car company worth more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, GM and Ford combined.

Mr Musk reacted to the news in signature style, replying to a Twitter user sharing the news with the remark “how strange”.

Born in South Africa, Musk holds citizenship status of United States and Canada. The tycoon’s fortunes have been boosted by politics in the US, where the Democrats will have control of the US Senate in the forthcoming session.