November 23, 2024

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Elon Musk: The first person to lose a $200 billion fortune

the Elon Musk He’s the biggest loser of the year. He’s $137 billion “poorer” today than he was on January 1, largely because of how he got Twitter and decided to run it, raising doubts about whether he had time to do business with his other companies: Tesla And the X space.

It is worth noting that only 4 people, Musk, Jeff Bezos, Chanping Zhao, and Mark Zuckerberg, lost $ 392 billion of their cumulative wealth. However, there were some minor exceptions.

How did he achieve the negative world record

Elon Musk, in January 2021, became the second person in the world, whose personal fortune exceeded $ 200 billion (the first was Jeff Bezos).

But, a few months later – in December 2022 – he became the first (and so far only one) to succeed in losing at least $200 billion.

The 51-year-old entrepreneur, in particular, saw his fortune shrink to just $137 billion on Friday as Tesla shares continued their downward trajectory, down nearly 70% over the past 12 months.

As of November 2021, Elon Musk’s bank account contained $340 billion. This means that in just 13 months he lost $203 billion in assets. An unimaginable amount of money “earned” him the title of the richest man in the world (now he is Bernard Arnault of LVMH).

In particular, regarding Tesla, in addition to the fear of falling revenue, it is also called upon to manage the growing competition, as more and more companies penetrate the field of electric mobility, and gain significant market shares.

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While he has to “lead” all these challenges, Musk made the incomprehensible – to many – move of acquiring 100% of Twitter in October for $44 billion. He even put himself in charge of the company, and decided to keep two watermelons in the same armpit.

The American billionaire, in order to finance the acquisition in question, made a barrage of sales of Tesla shares, in which he now controls 13.4% (he also owns 42.2% of SpaceX), which certainly upset the markets and intensified the liquidations.

Globally, there is a downward trend in tech giants

It is worth noting that only 4 people, Musk, Jeff Bezos, Chanping Zhao, and Mark Zuckerberg, lost $ 392 billion of their cumulative wealth.

It should be noted that the rest of the technology giants, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, recorded losses of a similar extent, which is attributed to the tightening monetary policy and fears of an upcoming recession.

After all, technology companies are seen as the most vulnerable to GDP deflationary projections, as their current stock market value depends largely on projections of future earnings.

Reassuring musk

Of course, Elon Musk himself has repeatedly dismissed concerns about Tesla and attributed the market turmoil and shrinking of his wealth to the Federal Reserve and skyrocketing interest rates.

“Tesla is doing better than ever,” he wrote on December 16 on Twitter. “We don’t control the Fed. That’s the real problem here.”