Elon Musk's Wealth Drops After Tesla's Earnings Shortfall, SpaceX Rocket Explosion; How Rich Is He Now?

The past 24 hours have not been financially favorable for billionaire Elon Musk and his companies as Tesla reported disappointing earnings and SpaceX encountered a rocket explosion. Also, Twitter's "legacy" verified users started losing their blue verified checkmarks Thursday. All these saw about $12.6 billion being wiped off Musk's net worth Friday.

The shares of the electric car company witnessed a decline of 9.75% to reach $162.99 after it released its first-quarter results Thursday, Bloomberg reported. An experimental Starship rocket developed by SpaceX exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, adding to its billionaire founder's woes.

The same day, several Twitter users lost their verified account status as the company began the mass removal of its blue ticks from non-subscribers. Consequently, the net value of Elon Musk saw a decline of $12.6 billion, which marks the most significant drop this year. His wealth fell to $164 billion from $180 billion on Friday.

Musk is still the second richest person in the world, after LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, who has a net worth of over $200 billion.

The Tesla CEO saw a considerable loss of more than $100 billion in net worth last year, reported Bloomberg. This was mainly because Tesla struggled with financial difficulties in China due to strict lockdown measures, considering it was the company's largest market outside of the U.S.

Musk also reportedly incurred a debt of $13 billion when he purchased Twitter in October. He had been adopting a cost-cutting approach at his new company, resulting in mass employee layoffs. The number of employees at Twitter has significantly reduced from approximately 7,500 workers to less than 2,000 since the takeover.

In January, Guinness World Records announced the Tesla owner has broken a 20-year-old record for the largest loss of personal fortune ever. Citing figures released by Forbes, the record-keeping company said Musk has lost around $182 billion since November 2021.

The previous record-holder was Japanese tech investor Masayoshi Son, who lost $58.6 billion back in 2000.