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Elon Musk has lost more money than any billionaire this year — and is still the richest person on Earth

qz.com 3 days ago

Stagnating Tesla sales, endless struggles with his takeover of Twitter and the turbulent value of Tesla stock has hit Musk's net worth hard

Photo: Marc Piasecki (Getty Images)

At the start of this year, Elon Musk had so much money that he could pretty much single-handedly solve world hunger with his $251 billion fortune. However, stagnating Tesla sales, endless struggles with his takeover of Twitter and the turbulent value of Tesla stock means he’s lost money this year — a lot of money.

Musk is reportedly the billionaire to have lost the most money so far this year, and has been losing value at a rate of roughly $5 billion every month, reports Forbes. According to the site, his wealth dropped by more than 10% between the end of 2023 and June 28 2024. As the site explains:

Musk’s net worth fell from $251.3 billion to $221.4 billion from Dec. 31, 2023 to June 28, the stock market’s last day of normal first-half trading, more than any other billionaire tracked by Forbes, though Musk remains the richest person on the planet.

Much of Musk’s shrinking piggy bank stems from a Delaware judge’s January axing of his record Tesla compensation package then valued at $51 billion, which caused Forbes to discount the value of the equity award by 50% due to uncertainty of Musk ever getting hold of those stock options.

Excluding the award, it was still a shaky six months for Musk’s fortune, as the value of his existing 13% stake in Tesla decreased by about $20 billion as shares of the automaker slipped 20% due to declining profits and car deliveries, partially offset by Musk’s stake in his generative artificial intelligence startup xAI grew to $14.4 billion (Musk also has a roughly $75 billion stake in private aerospace company SpaceX, a $7 billion stake in his social media company X and smaller holdings in his other endeavors like human brain experimental startup Neuralink).

Despite the struggles faced by Musk over the first half of 2024, many of the world’s richest people fared much better. In fact, Forbes reports that the worth of the super rich rose dramatically during the period. Forbes’ 10 richest people’s collective net worth jumped from $1.47 trillion at the end of 2023 to $1.66 trillion at the end of June 2024.

While he might have lost a few billion here and there, Musk remains the richest person in the world ahead of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, whose net worth is around $214 billion at the time of writing.

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