Elon Musk started 2023 by breaking a world record. His name is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the person who lost the biggest personal fortune in history.
"Elon Musk (South Africa) has officially broken the world record for the largest personal fortune loss in history," the Guinness World Record said in a blog post, as quoted by dkami.
The Guinness World Record refers to a Forbes report which estimates Musk lost USD 183 billion in just one year. However, Bloomberg's estimate is much higher, namely USD 200 billion.
Musk's personal fortune hit a breaking point in November 2021 when his fortune crossed $340 billion thanks to the skyrocketing value of Tesla stock. Musk was immediately named the richest person in the world, a position he held for about a year.
Just like other billionaires, Musk's wealth is strongly tied to his ownership of shares in the companies he controls. Musk's greatest source of wealth is his stake in Tesla, of which he holds 14%, making him the largest shareholder.
However, Tesla's stock value will drop by 65% in 2022, affecting Musk's personal wealth. The decline also got worse after Musk bought Twitter for USD 44 billion in October 2022.
"The tumultuous takeover, coupled with Musk's divisive behavior on the platform, sparked the biggest selloff in Tesla's stock since the company went public in 2010," said the Guinness World Record.
After losing hundreds of billions of dollars, it doesn't mean that Musk immediately fell into poverty. Currently Musk's assets are estimated at USD 138 billion and make him the second richest person in the world under LVMH boss Bernard Arnault.
The previous record for the biggest loss of personal wealth in history was held by Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son. The Japanese billionaire once lost USD 58.6 billion in 2000 due to the bursting dot-com bubble.