Buying Twitter probably seemed like a better idea to Elon Musk before he actually went through with it.
Since he took control of the social-media company in October, it’s only been causing him headaches. The latest: Musk has become the first person to ever lose $200 billion, Bloomberg reported recently. His net worth is currently sitting at $137 billion, down from a high of $340 billion in November 2021. That’s a pretty long way to fall—one most of us can’t even fathom.
The loss is most recently due to the downward trajectory of Musk’s Tesla. Since the EV company achieved a $1 trillion market capitalization in October 2021, shares have plummeted, sometimes dropping more than 11 percent in a single day. Overall, Tesla shares fell a whopping 65 percent in 2022, leading the company to offer a rare end-of-year discount on some models. Reportedly, it’s also slowing down production at its Shanghai plant. (For his part, Musk has maintained that Tesla is doing well, tweeting that the company is “executing better than ever” just last month.) And the stock was hammered again today after deliveries of new cars in the fourth quarter of 2022 fell below Wall Street’s expectations.
Beyond Tesla, though, Twitter is also contributing to Musk’s downfall. The multibillionaire bought the company for $44 billion, and he’s had to sell many of his Tesla shares to help cover the acquisition. Of course, his decision to fire dozens of Twitter employees and his bizarre approach to running the social-media site haven’t helped him in the eyes of the public either.
In all, it’s a steep decline for the man who was once the richest person in the world. In January 2021, he became just the second person to accumulate a personal fortune of more than $200 billion. (Unsurprisingly, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos was the first, beating out Musk by a matter of months.) And after becoming the richest person in late 2021, Musk remained in that coveted spot until LVMH’s Bernard Arnault dethroned him this past December.
Of course, Musk still remains a multibillionaire, with a $44.8 billion stake in his SpaceX and a $44 billion one in Tesla, with his options in the latter company worth another $27.8 billion or so. Given that, we’re only breaking out our tiny EVs (electric violins) for the second richest man in the world.
