Is Elon Musk still world's richest person? Tesla CEO's wealth drops below $200B after selling $4B Tesla shares
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: Elon Musk's net worth has reportedly dropped below $200B after investors allegedly dumped Tesla Inc out of fear that the Tesla owner was preoccupied with his plans for Twitter. Musk now has a net worth of $197.4B, according to Forbes, with a big share of that coming from his nearly 15% stake in Tesla, which has a market value of $622B.
Musk's sudden drop in wealth comes after investors dropped Tesla due to worries over share sale by Musk, who has divested at least $15B of stock. The tech mogul reportedly closed the $44B with the social media giant in October with $13B in loans from banks including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp, in debt financing and a $33.5B equity commitment. Initially, Musk pledged to provide $46.5B in equity and debt financing for the acquisition, which covered the $44B price tag and the closing costs.
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Now Wall Street fears that Musk has almost reached his limit since buying the microblogging platform after the world's biggest electric vehicle maker is beefing up production amid rising competition. "It seems like Elon Musk is spending 100% of the time on Twitter and you know, it might need more capital," said Jay Hatfield at Infrastructure Capital Management, as per Daily Mail.
Since his Twitter acquisition, Tesla sales have been declining, as in 2022, he sold over $8B of stocks in April and roughly $7B in August, reported a source. Musk, who used to frequently tweet about Tesla that helped him, is now using Twitter to promote his plans about the social media platform such as an $8 per month subscription for blue tick verification. Benefits of the verification service includes "half the ads," posting longer videos and higher priority for quality content, Twitter reportedly said. Musk is $40B richer than the second richest person, LVMH-owner Bernard Arnault, as per Daily Mail.