The chairman of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter is worth $137 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He falls to second place on the world’s richest list, behind LVMH chairman Bernard Arnold. But at the peak of the estimate in November 2021, Musk’s net worth is $340 billion. CNN Business.
This makes Musk the first person to lose $200 billion in wealth, according to an article Bloomberg Since last week.
Much of Musk’s fortune is tied to Tesla, whose shares are down 65 percent in 2022. Demand for Tesla has weakened as electric car competition intensified among established automakers last year. The company missed growth targets and cut its production in China. Fourth-quarter deliveries on Monday missed Wall Street estimates.
Evidence of waning interest from car buyers in Tesla became public last month after the company announced rare discounts in an effort to clear inventory. Tesla offered two discounts to buyers who chose to order by the end of the year, initially offering a $3,750 discount and then doubling it to $7,500 two weeks before the end of 2022.
Investors were shocked by the cuts, and shares fell 37% in December.
Critics have long questioned whether Tesla will be worth $3 trillion by the start of 2022. At its peak, Tesla was worth more than the 12 largest automakers on the planet, despite having a fraction of its sales. Tesla ended the year with a valuation of $386 billion — more than its industry rivals but far less than tech titans Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon — compared with the company’s year ago.
Twitter’s $44 billion acquisition didn’t help Tesla’s stock or Musk’s personal wealth. Musk, Tesla’s majority shareholder, has sold $23 billion worth of Tesla stock since his interest in Twitter went public in April.
His frequent tweets and increasingly erratic behavior, especially after taking over as Twitter CEO, angered Tesla investors, who want Musk to focus more on the significantly larger and more valuable company. Musk defended himself against the criticism, saying he hasn’t missed a big Tesla meeting since taking over the social platform.
Tesla shares could recover and Musk could become the world’s richest man again. But Musk’s reputation as a genius took some serious hits in 2022—as serious as his personal fortunes.
“Evil gamer. Amateur music trailblazer. Alcohol geek. Problem solver. Coffee advocate. Troublemaker. Infuriatingly humble zombieaholic.”