Elon Musk just made a bad record. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index noted that he lost the biggest fortune in history, USD 200 billion. What caused it?
Currently, his wealth is only USD 137 billion, missing half of his heyday. He is no longer the richest man, beaten by the fashion tycoon from France, Bernard Arnault.
Elon Musk's wealth is closely related to share ownership in the companies he controls, especially Tesla. Had soared, Tesla's shares fell dramatically. Last year, the electric car company's shares fell 65%. At its peak in October 2021, Tesla's market cap was over USD 1 trillion, now it is only USD 385 billion.
As quoted by us from The Verge, many things contributed to the collapse of Tesla's stock. From the loss of momentum in the Chinese market, the failure of the autopilot software, investors' anxiety because Elon Musk was busy on Twitter to the delays in flagship products such as the Cybertruck.
"Tesla has been threatened across sectors," said Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities. He still believes Tesla stock will rise in the long term, but criticized the purchase of Twitter for splitting Elon Musk's concentration.
"At a time when Tesla is having to discount prices and stockpiling is starting to pile up in the face of a global recession, Elon Musk is seen as sleeping in the perspective of a leader for Tesla at a time when investors need the CEO to navigate this huge storm," Ives added.
Elon Musk himself has been emailing Tesla employees to ignore the stock market madness. However, it is clear that Tesla is facing a big problem, not to mention that this year rivals such as Volkswagen, Hyundai, Kia and Mercedes are ready to present tough opponents in the electric car arena.