Elon Musk loses 100 billion dollars, but he is still the richest person in the world. That places him just slightly ahead of Bernard Arnault, the founder, and CEO of the luxury goods firm LVMH ($157 billion), in the list of the richest people in the world.
It was a different situation for Musk a year ago when tech stocks were rising. According to estimates from Bloomberg, Musk’s net worth was $340 billion when Tesla shares peaked in November 2021 at about $410. At the time, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, was the richest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of $200 billion.
However, as growing recession fears have shaken investors’ confidence, slowing EV demand, and Musk’s purchase of Twitter, Tesla‘s stock has dropped more than 59% since that time. Several vehicle recalls have also harmed the company’s prospects, including one this week that will take 321,000 U.S. cars off the road due to a problem with the rear tail lights.
Musk owns about 15% of Tesla, so any significant decline in the company’s stock negatively impacts his net worth.
Don’t feel terrible for the “Chief Twit,” though; Musk’s net worth is still about equal to the yearly GDP of all of Iraq and 227,272 times more than that of the typical American home. Musk could purchase 10.5 million bitcoin, 97.5 million troy ounces of gold, or even 1.9 billion barrels of oil if he so desired.
Elon Musk loses 100 billion dollars
Musk hasn’t had the best year, though. He has actually lost more money than any other billionaire, with a $101 billion decline in net value.
The second-largest loser on the list is Mark Zuckerberg. In contrast to Changpeng Zhao, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who has lost $81.9 billion over the same period as the crypto winter persists, the CEO of Meta has seen his fortune decline by $83.5 billion this time year.
On the other hand, Indian business tycoon Gautam Adani, whose net worth increased by $53 billion this year to $130 billion, placing him third in the rankings, is vying with Musk for the title of the world’s richest person.
Forbes quoted Wedbush analyst Dan Ives as saying, “The difficulty for Tesla investors is that more stock sales are probably going to be made by Musk to fund [the Twitter] purchase, which we believe will go down as one of the worst, most overpriced M&A deals in the history of the market.”
Aside from the drama, though, his actual businesses have encountered more typical challenges. To start, the economy is bad for everyone. The CEO also joked earlier this year that his Tesla gigafactories should have made “a gigantic roaring sound that [was] the sound of money on fire” because of supply chain issues. Of course, those financial issues could have also been influenced by government recall inquiries.
We’re sure Elon Musk is happy about the fact that he is still wealthier than Jeff Bezos at the end of the day. In any case, it’s unlikely that the world’s richest man will abandon his divisive practices anytime soon; after all, he doesn’t seem overly concerned with the potential impact on his own savings. But it’s still unclear whether his investors will continue to put their faith in him.
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Elon Musk’s net worth
Elon Musk is still the richest man in the world after seeing his wealth decline by more than $100 billion this year. Bloomberg and Forbes estimate the Tesla CEO’s net worth to be between $170 billion and $182 billion.
