Elon Musk Becomes First Person Ever to Lose 200 Billion
Following a year filled with questionable choices, multi-billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become the first person to lose $200 billion in wealth.
Before his rise as the wealthiest person in the world, Musk’s fortune positioned him below Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But massive growth in sales from Tesla surged the company’s stocks and propelled Musk’s wealth, as the electric vehicle manufacturing company was the billionaire’s primary source of wealth.
At the peak of Musk’s wealth, his net worth was $340 billion, and he was ranked as the world’s richest person by Forbes and the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. But according to recent reports, Musk is now worth $137 billion, placing him below LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault on the Bloomberg Index and just above Indian industrialist Gautam Adani and American business magnate Bill Gates.
Tesla fell short of its expansion goals as established manufacturers increased their competition in the electric vehicle market in 2022, and demand for Teslas decreased. The business’s stock plunged 65%, rapidly decreasing Musk’s wealth as it declined.
As a result of slowing sales, Tesla announced a massive sale to clear out its slow-moving inventory. The company later offered customers massive rebates, which alarmed investors, causing the stock to plunge further.
Further depleting Musk’s wealth was his controversial and highly publicised $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, with the embattled CEO reportedly selling $23 billion worth of Tesla shares since his interest in Twitter became public in April.
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