Earlier this month, Elon Musk lost his title as the world’s wealthiest person by net worth. But amidst the continued decline of Tesla stock, the gap between Musk and Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, has only gotten more prominent.
A significant driver behind the decline in Musk’s net worth is the massive drop in Tesla stock this year, which was pushed in no small part by his turbulent acquisition of social media company Twitter, which he bought for $44 billion. Back in April, before a Twitter securities filing revealed that Musk had made a hostile bid worth $43.4 billion, Tesla’s shares were trading at $340.79. Since then, TSLA has fallen by more than 50% and is currently trading at around $160 per share.
Further declines in Tesla’s share price at the start of the week led to more losses for Musk’s net worth. In the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk is currently listed with an estimated net worth of $164 billion, a decline of $107 billion for the year. In comparison, Arnault is currently listed in the index with a net worth of $171 billion, $7 billion more than the Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter CEO.
In a statement, CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson noted that the drops in Tesla stock do not really seem to be due to the company itself. “The company just can’t catch a break in terms of investor sentiment. There’s a growing recognition that the sooner Elon Musk assumes a chairman role at Twitter and appoints someone to take over the day-to-day operations, the better off TSLA investors will be,” Nelson said.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives noted that the drop in Tesla shares is due to Twitter. “Musk has gone from a superhero (for) Tesla’s stock to a villain in the eyes of the Street as the overhang grows with each tweet. The Twitter circus show has hurt the Musk brand and it’s a major overhang on Tesla’s stock. Musk is Tesla and Tesla is Musk,” Ives said.
The decline of Musk’s net worth has been quite unfortunate, especially since Tesla has been doing progressively well during the past years. This culminated last October when Tesla’s market capitalization reached $1 trillion for the first time. This also made Elon Musk the first person to be worth $300 billion or more.
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