Bloomberg: Musk became the first person in history to lose $200 billion

Tesla founder and Twitter owner Elon Musk became the first person in history to lose $200 billion writes Bloomberg. The businessman’s fortune fell to $137 billion earlier this week after Tesla’s share price fell 11%.

Musk’s fortune, according to the agency, exceeded $200 billion in January 2021. Then he became the richest man in the world, ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. In the same year, in early November, the businessman’s fortune reached a maximum of $ 340 billion. In December 2022, the title of the richest person passed to the head of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) Bernard Arnault.

Musk’s fortune has dwindled in recent weeks after shares in the electric car maker plunged. On Tuesday, December 27, they fell by 11%, according to Bloomberg. Tesla’s market capitalization passed the $1 trillion mark for the first time last October, and now, “Tesla’s dominance in electric vehicles is under threat.”

It is offering U.S. consumers a rare $7,500 discount on two of its largest models before the end of the year, and is also cutting production at its Shanghai plant.

After the deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion, the businessman began selling Tesla shares. As a result, according to the agency, their value in 2022 decreased by 65%, and they ceased to be the largest asset of the entrepreneur. Musk himself dismissed concerns about Tesla and criticized the US Federal Reserve for raising interest rates sharply, and the company, as he wrote on Twitter, is “better than ever.”

At the beginning of 2022, Tesla was valued at $1.2 trillion. Since then, its capitalization has decreased by more than $ 800 billion. One of the reasons for the deterioration of Tesla’s financial position was first lockdowns in China, which led to a halt or reduction in production at the company’s factories in the country, and then the abolition of all restrictions and the record growth that followed. morbidity. Another factor was Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social networking site Twitter — he sold $31 billion in Tesla shares to finance the deal.

At the end of December, Bloomberg wrote that Musk’s fortune was about $147.7 billion, which was also the lowest value in more than two years. After Tesla’s stock fell more than 10%, the CEO urged employees in his pre-New Year letter to employees “not to worry too much about the craziness in the stock market,” CNBC reported.