Elon Musk has set a world record for the largest loss of personal fortune in history, according to Guinness World Records (GWR), which was announced on Friday.
In a blog post, the organization cited Forbes’ estimate that Mr Musk had lost around $182 billion since November 2021, but noted that other sources put the figure closer to $200 billion.
“Although the exact figure is almost impossible to ascertain, Musk’s total losses far surpass the previous record of $58.6 billion, set by Japanese tech investor Masayoshi Son in 2000,” GWR wrote in its blog.
The Hill claims that Elon Musk’s net worth decreased significantly as a result of the underwhelming performance of Tesla’s stock, from $320 billion in November 2021 to $137 billion in January 2023.
According to the outlet, Mr. Musk sold $7 billion worth of Tesla stock to raise money for his plan to purchase Twitter, as well as another $4 billion in November. He sold an additional $3.58 billion of stock in the past month, bringing his overall sell-off to more than $23 billion since April.
“Musk’s misfortunes also saw him lose his status as the world’s richest person to Bernard Arnault (France), founder of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy), who has an estimated net worth of $190 billion,” GRW said.
The group also pointed out that this alarming decline quickened in October following Mr. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter for about $44 billion.
“The tumultuous takeover, coupled with Musk’s polarizing behaviour on the platform, sparked the biggest Tesla stock sell-off since the company went public in 2010,” it added.
Guinness added that the dot-com crash completely destroyed the value of Masayoshi Son’s company, Softbank, whose net worth fell from a peak of $78 billion in February 2000 to $19.4 billion in July of that same year. In order to recover, the company eventually acquired a number of British and American technology firms.
“As Elon Musk continues to build his own tech conglomerate, we won’t be surprised to see him bounce back too at some point in the future,” the Guinness blog post said.
