Musk loses more money than anyone else ever in $200 billion bloodbath

Elon Musk has just passed a milestone that nobody wants to be known for — losing more money than anyone else who has ever existed on planet Earth.

Elon Musk has just passed an unenviable milestone.

Elon Musk has just passed a milestone that nobody wants to be known for — losing the most amount of money ever.

The Tesla founder officially shed around $US200 billion ($294 billion) of his personal fortune in the last 14 months, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.

That’s more than any other human being in the history of the world.

In November 2021, at the height of the stock market craze during the Covid pandemic, Musk was the richest person to have ever walked the earth, with a net worth of $US340 billion ($500 billion).

However, at time of writing, he’s had a significant fall from grace since that staggering figure.

Mr Musk, 51, now has a fortune of $US137 billion ($201 billion), which means he’s lost than half of his peak wealth.

Adding to Musk’s woes is the fate of his brainchild, Tesla, which is on the rocks as other electric vehicle companies catch up to the technology.

A large portion of Musk’s fortune rests with Tesla, which has had a horror year on the stock market.

In the past year, Tesla stocks plummeted 65 per cent.

Elon Musk has lost half of his wealth. Picture: Muhammed Selim Korkutata/Anadolu Agency

Tesla has had a very bad year. Picture: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP

In fact, the situation appears so dire that Tesla is offering US customers a rare $US7500 ($11,000) discount to pre-order two of its two models before the end of the year.

At Tesla’s peak in October 2021, the EV company had a market capitalisation that surpassed $US1 trillion ($1.47 trillion).

Now its market cap sits at $US385 billion ($566 billion).

In December, Tesla’s market value plunged slumped below the half-trillion-dollar mark for the first time since November 2020.

In late December, Musk took to Twitter to defend his company’s abysmal stock performance.

“Go back and read your old Securities Analysis 101 textbook,” he said to critics.

“As bank savings account interest rates, which are guaranteed, start to approach stock market returns, which are *not* guaranteed, people will increasingly move their money out of stocks into cash, thus causing stocks to drop.”

To fund his controversial hostile takeover of Twitter, Musk also sold un unprecedented amount of Tesla stock — 22 million shares — worth an estimated $US40 billion ($59 billion).

He still has a personal stake in Tesla worth an estimated $US27.8 billion ($40.9 billion).

Musk has been preoccupied with his Twitter takeover, which also isn’t going so well.

In simple terms:

As bank savings account interest rates, which are guaranteed, start to approach stock market returns, which are *not* guaranteed, people will increasingly move their money out of stocks into cash, thus causing stocks to drop.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2022

His personal fortune took a hit after taking a $US44 billion ($65 billion) gamble on social media platform Twitter in a hostile takeover.

So far, it appears that gamble hasn’t paid off as workers quit en masse, Twitter users have quit in droves and key advertisers have pulled out.

To top it off, this week Musk announced he would resign as Twitter’s chief executive as soon as he can find “someone foolish enough to take the job”.

Musk is looking for a new Twitter CEO. Picture: Win McNamee/Getty Images/AFP

In early December, Musk’s year took another turn for the worse and his ego also endured a massive hit when he lost his title as the world’s richest person.

Musk slipped to the second position on the global rich list, according to the Bloomberg’s Billionaires’ Index.

Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of the luxury group LVMH, which oversees brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, Sephora and Tiffany & Co., briefly pushed Musk out of the top spot on December 8.

Then on December 14, Arnault managed to retain the top slot, relegating Musk to position two among the world’s billionaires.