Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the second-richest person in the world, is now officially the owner of the record for the biggest loss of personal fortune in history, according to Guinness World Records, which cited Forbes’ estimate of Musk’s net worth decline.
Masayoshi Son, the creator of Softbank and a Korean-Japanese billionaire, held the previous record but saw his entire wealth decline by $58.6 billion in 2000, from $78 billion in February to $19.4 billion in July.
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Guinness reported that the South African-born business executive’s net worth has fallen from a high of $320 billion in 2021 to $138 billion in January 2023, placing him behind France’s Bernard Arnault, who swapped places with him in December last year and whose net worth, as of January 10, 2023, stands at $196.6 billion.
While the majority of Musk’s wealth is linked to Tesla stock, Guinness reports that his worth started to drop after his acquisition of Twitter, which he paid $44 billion for in October 2022.
The largest drop in the value of the Tesla shares since the business went public in 2010 was caused by the “tumultuous” takeover and the new owner’s “polarizing” behavior.
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Despite this, Tesla is still the most valuable automaker in the world, with a market worth that is more than $100 billion higher than that of Toyota, its main rival.
