Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter CEO Elon Musk saw his wealth drop by $100 billion this year, from an estimated $340 billion in November 2021 to between $170 billion and $182 billion. The billion drop came as Tesla shares fell to a two-year low this week, eroding Musk’s wealth by nearly $8.6 billion in just one day.
Musk reportedly owns about 15 percent of Tesla’s shares which is down 58.03% year-to-date. Earlier this month, he sold about $15.5 billion in Tesla shares to buy Twitter. Tesla accounts for the bulk of Musk’s fortune, but has been hit hard by ongoing COVID-19 restrictions in China and a recent shipment of 300,000 Tesla vehicles. Apart from material cost, the revenue has suffered due to faulty taillights.
His net worth continued to decline after Twitter was acquired for $44 billion, the largest acquisition of a technology company in history. Musk recently had to defend a nearly $56 billion pay package Tesla offered him years ago. was handed over to the court. Richard Tornetta, owner of some Tesla shares, filed a lawsuit in 2019, claiming the Tesla board offered Musk an overly generous pay package even though he was only spending half his time at the electric carmaker.
His new hobby as Chief Tweet has only claimed that he is spreading himself too thin. Despite the setbacks, Musk still remains the world’s richest man with a net worth of nearly $65 billion, ahead of runner-up Bernard Arnault. Musk is not the only tech executive whose net worth has plummeted this year as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Alphabet co-founder Larry Page have also experienced significant financial setbacks.