Billionaire Elon Musk, who used to be the richest man in the world, broke a new record.
The Tesla founder and Twitter owner became the first person in history to lose $200 billion of his fortune. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The 51-year-old Musk became the second person after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to amass a fortune of more than $200 billion in 2021.
Musk, whose net worth peaked in November. $340 billion in 2021, saw his fortune drop to $137 million with Tesla stock decreased by 65% in the last year.
It’s been the electric car maker’s worst year to date.
The decline included an 11% drop on Tuesday alone, after the Wall Street Journal reported that a surge in COVID cases had forced Tesla to temporarily halt production in Shanghai.
In a memo sent to employees on Wednesday, the billionaire thanked employees for their “exceptional execution” during the year, downplaying the company’s dismal stock performance.
“Don’t worry too much about the stock market frenzy,” Musk said in the memo Retrieved by CNBC.
“As long as we show consistent excellent performance, the market will recognize that.”
Musk was stripped of the title of the world’s richest man earlier this month Handing over to Bernard ArnaultFrench chairman and CEO of LVMH.
Musk’s historic losses are indicative of how far Musk and Tesla have risen during the pandemic.
Despite having a small share of the electric car market, Tesla was valued at more than $1 trillion by October. 2021 — Join other tech giants like Apple, Amazon and Google’s parent company Alphabet, Bloomberg reports.
But as rivals quickly challenged Tesla’s dominance in the electric car market, Musk’s attention turned to his newest venture as owner and CEO of social media giant Twitter.
Musk was forced to sell most of his Tesla stock this year as a result of his mammoth $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index.
According to the latest filing reviewed by the news outlet, Musk now owns a $44.8 billion stake in Space Exploration Technologies Corp. — about 42.2% of the company.
After taking over Twitter, Musk took major cost-cutting measures at the social media company.
He laid off about 75% of his 7,500 employees and is closing the company’s Seattle offices for refusing to pay rent.
