Elon Musk has dabbled in many successful projects throughout his career to date which have helped him amass the largest fortune ever seen. The South African-born tech entrepreneur saw his net worth balloon to over $300 billion, the first person in history to do so while at the same time becoming the richest person in the world in 2021.
However, the past couple years have been rough on his finances as his assets have lost value. By the beginning of 2023, he had lost $200 billion, another first, largely due to the flagging share value of Tesla. Musk is the CEO and, with a nearly 13 percent stake, the largest shareholder in the electric vehicle manufacturing company.
Why does Elon Musk’s net worth keep dropping lately?
At its pinnacle, Tesla shares were worth over $400 in November 2021 before plummeting to around $113 at the start of 2023. The EV car maker’s stock value made strong gains more than doubling by summer but has seen big swings since. After the company’s third-quarter earnings call on 18 October, where Musk warned about the profitability of the Cybertruck and risks from high interest rates, Tesla’s shares began to slide once again.
On Monday, the EV manufacturer’s share price dipped below $200 for the first time since May. The drop in share price is once again driving Musk’s net worth down, now around $41 billion lower than before the Tesla Q3 earnings call according to Bloomberg.
Another factor dragging the billionaire entrepreneur’s net worth down is his acquisition of Twitter last year. After months of trying to back out of purchasing the social media platform for $44 billion, prompting a legal battle, he finally took over the reins in October 2022.
Musk, who admitted that he overpaid and has renamed the social media platform ‘X’, promised to make the company profitable by shaking things up. However, many of the changes have spooked advertisers including reinstating banned accounts and slashing staff prompting concerns about content moderation.
Advertising revenue is down around 60 percent since his takeover which he blames on the Anti-Defamation League drawing attention to the growth of hate speech on the site. Musk even filed a defamation lawsuit against the anti-hate organization.
Forbes reported that the company formerly known as Twitter has valued itself at just $19 billion, less than half the pre-acquisition value.
