It’s more than just another tycoon’s downfall, but also the tale of one of the biggest wealth crashes in modern times: Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk lost over $200 billion in the span of thirteen months based on the most recent numbers on the Bloomberg Billionaires’ Index.
The staggering amount was noted to be more or less the equivalent of Greece’s gross domestic product. Musk’s financial losses also added up to quite a bit more than the total net worth of LVMH head Bernard Arnault who was hailed as the world’s richest person towards the end of 2022.
Experts point out that this significant drop in Musk’s total net worth is mostly due to the way Tesla’s stock collapsed between November 2021 and December 2022.
Musk was actually ahead of the game back in November 2021 when his net worth hit around $338 billion. However, from that point onward, the tech mogul found himself going downhill.
Delays and Dilemmas
2022 was a rough time for Musk’s electric vehicle company, particularly because of numerous production delays at its facilities in China due to that country’s extreme anti-COVID policies.
Other factors affecting Tesla’s bottom line include numerous vehicle recalls throughout much of 2022, mostly due to technical flaws leading to accidents and property damage, as well as the way investors have shied away from the company, citing Musk’s increasingly erratic behavior since he took over social media platform Twitter.
To date, Tesla’s overall market value has fallen by nearly 70%, marking a decrease of almost $900 billion since the fourth quarter of 2021. Tesla has since fallen out of the world’s ten most valuable companies due to its massive losses.
Still On Top – But For How Much Longer?
Despite the massive drop in its founder’s net worth as well as its own market value, Tesla is still considered the world’s most valuable car maker. However, experts note that the total value of its losses in 2022 is roughly equivalent to the combined market capitalization of all its competitors.
Musk appears indifferent to this blow to his personal wealth. Indeed, his most recent email to Tesla employees stated that he believed Tesla would become the world’s most valuable company in the long run. He advised his staff not to be bothered by the company’s volatile stock market performance, going so far as to declare that the company’s “continued excellent performance” would eventually prove detractors wrong.
Musk is not the only mogul whose wealth has decreased over the past year. When the tech-centric Nasdaq index fell by around a third, other tech giants lost a collective total of $180 billion, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google’s Larry Page, Microsoft chief Bill Gates, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison.
