Elon Musk makes Guinness World Record for historic drop in wealth

Most of Elon Musk's wealth is linked to Tesla shares, that witnessed a huge drop in 2022.

Elon Musk's historic wealth drop is now part of the Guinness World Records. The global reference book recently announced that Musk, once the world's wealthiest person, had officially shattered the world record for "the largest loss of personal fortune in history".

"Musk’s net worth dropped from a peak of $320 billion in 2021 to $138 billion as of January 2023, largely due to the poor performance of Tesla’s stock," Guinness World Records said, citing Forbes magazine.

Musk's fellow billionaires also witnessed wealth erosion in 2022. Amazon's Jeff Bezos lost $80 billion, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg lost $78 billion loss.

The Tesla CEO has surpassed by the widest gap the $58.6-billion loss record held by Japanese investor Masayoshi Son.

Earlier reports, citing the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, said Musk had lost a record $200-billion in net worth.

Elon Musk is now the first person ever to lose $200 billion

Most of Elon Musk's fortune is linked to Tesla shares, that declined 65 percent in 2022. He also sold shares worth over $6 billion to fund his takeover of Twitter.

As per the latest the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, LVMH boss Bernard Arnault is now the richest person in the world. Musk is second.

Musk's electric vehicles maker Tesla saw two-thirds of its market value erode in in 2022. Among the myriad reasons were its boss' controversies as Twitter CEO.

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But some analysts say the problem is unrelated to Twitter and arose because Tesla is no more the only player in the electric vehicles market.

(With inputs from AFP)