CEO of Tesla and Twitter Elon Musk has recently witnessed a huge chunk of his net worth wiped off, which has seen him break a new record as the first person in history to lose a whopping $200 billion from his net worth.
According to reports, his wealth plunged to $137 billion in the previous week after a substantial decline in the value of Tesla shares.
The continuous decline in Tesla shares has been attributed to the persistent selloff of the company’s stocks by global investors that considered Musk’s extensive involvement in his new acquisition, Twitter an issue. Tesla investors believe Twitter would distract Musk from key challenges grappling with Tesla, especially with slowing sales in China.
A Tesla investor Gary Black who owns roughly $50 million worth of Tesla shares, took to his Twitter handle to disclose that the company currently doesn’t have a CEO. “There is no TSLA CEO today”, he wrote.
“The market voted today that the $TSLA brand has been negatively impacted by the Twitter drama. Where before EV buyers were proud to drive their Teslas to their friends or show off Teslas in their driveways, now the Twitter controversy is hurting Tesla’s brand equity”, he added.
Meanwhile, Musk had earlier admitted that he has been more focused on Twitter lately, noting that he expects to reduce his time on the social media company as soon as he finds someone to replace him as the CEO.
Tesla shares are reportedly down to 54.31% this year, putting it on pace for its worst year on record, as the only year where the shares fell was in 2016.
All these have negatively impacted Musk’s net worth as it is reported that a majority of his wealth is closely tied to Tesla stock.
It should be recalled that on December 8, 2022, Investors King reported that Musk who was once the world’s richest man in the world, was displaced from his position.
He was dethroned by Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy, who is currently worth $179.2 billion, while Musk who currently has a net worth of $146.5 billion, occupies the second position.
Musk held the title of the world’s wealthiest man since September 2021, when he overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
He presently owns 14.11% of Tesla’s outstanding shares, with a market value of $530 billion, and also owns more than 40% of SpaceX shares.