If that is not a reason to celebrate. Leo Koguan (67), who does it with risky bets Teslashares to become one of the largest private individual shareholders in the electric car company was included in the list of the 400 richest people in America by the US magazine “Forbes” for the first time this week. Koguan is therefore worth 7.2 billion dollars. He himself celebrated the recording in a takeaway restaurant in Singapore, as he on Twitter posted, in proper style with Hainanese chicken and rice.
Koguan is a dazzling character. Born in Indonesia, the US citizen now lives in Singapore. The source of his wealth is the software company he founded, SHI International, whose CEO is his wife Thai Lee, also a billionaire. But Koguan became famous as a Tesla shareholder. The self-proclaimed “fanboy” of Elon Musk (51) has been investing heavily in tech stocks for years, at times he also owned significant shares in the chip company Nvidia or the Chinese IT company Baidu. Above all, however, he speculated with option transactions relating to Tesla.
With success. While his idol Musk made it to the top of the Forbes list with a fortune of $263 billion, Koguan still ranks 112th.
He benefited from the course of the volatile Tesla shares. The paper has gained 22 percent in value over the past twelve months and has defied the turbulence on the stock exchanges relatively well. Tesla is currently worth around $840 billion, less than at its peak, but significant given the market situation. The stock is currently trading at $280. The swings don’t worry Koguan: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,” he summarized to Bloomberg. “Fortunately, I win more often than I lose.”
According to Koguan, he only started investing in shares in 2019. Then within a short time he rose to become the secret Tesla billionaire, as manager magazin reported last year. Koguan told Forbes that he owned more stocks in early 2020 and lost many of them during the early pandemic chaos. Then he made the difficult decision to sell his holdings in companies like Nvidia or Baidu and go “all-in” on Tesla.
The investor is so too Tesla’s third largest single shareholder risen, just behind Tesla boss Elon Musk and Oracle founder Larry Ellison (78). But while he owns fewer shares than Musk, according to one, he does Twitter-Post much more money invested in Tesla. Even more than Musk and Ellison combined.
He has repeatedly promised publicly to continue investing. He now owns more than 22.7 million shares. In this month alone, he bought more than 100,000 Tesla shares, as he documented in several posts on Twitter.
His motto in life: Concentrate on one stock. Always trust Elon Musk. And diligently buy more whenever the price falls.
At Tesla, they certainly know what they have in loyal stock buyer Leo Koguan. Martin Viecha, Head of Tesla Investor Relations, also congratulated him on his debut on the list of the richest. “Leo is fantastic. What an asset to the community.”