Elon Musk loses $140bn in 2022 but remains world’s 2nd richest person: Passing year not ‘generous’ for other billionaires either

Since the beginning of the year, Tesla's shares have fallen by 68%, as a result of which the head of the company, Elon Musk, has lost about $140 billion. Despite this, he remains the second richest person in the world.

Elon Musk and his wealth

According to Businessinsider, Musk's fortune was $300 billion at the beginning of this year, and he topped the list of the richest people in the world. But he lost more than half of this amount, including because of the drop in Tesla shares. Investors in this electric car company are concerned that Musk is not paying enough attention to the company and is preoccupied with other ventures, particularly Twitter.

As per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as of December 28, 2022, Musk is now worth $130 billion, which even less than half of what he had at the beginning of the year.

At the end of October, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, after which the price of Tesla shares decreased by 50%. To fund the Twitter acquisition and create a safety cushion for the company, Musk also sold billions worth of Tesla stock. This also led to a drop in stock prices, after which Musk promised not to sell shares until 2024.

At the moment, according to Bloomberg, Musk's most valuable asset is SpaceX. His stake in this company is about $47 billion. Musk's stake in Tesla is worth about $40 billion to date, and his options in the company are worth another $28 billion.

Twitter is Musk's next most valuable asset, valued by Bloomberg at $20 billion—though he bought it for twice that price.

Musk also owns a stake in The Boring Company, which Bloomberg estimated at $3.3 billion. According to these estimates, it turns out that Musk's fortune should be approximately $138.3 billion.

2022 was not ‘generous’ to billionaires

If we study the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, we will notice that many billionaires have lost a part of their wealth in 2022.

This list of billionaires is headed by tycoon Bernard Arnault, co-founder and CEO of LVMH. His fortune is estimated at $163 billion, but this year he lost another $15 billion.

The third in this ranking is Indian businessman Gautam Adani, who currently has $116 billion. Unlike the top two billionaires, this year he increased his wealth by $39.9 billion. By the amount of money earned this year, he leads the list of billionaires.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is in the 6th place on the list, with a fortune of $106 billion. This year, he lost a little less than half of his wealth—$86.3 billion, and he is in the second place in terms of the amount of money lost in 2022.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is currently 25th on the aforesaid list of billionaires, with a fortune of $44.4 billion. He lost twice as much money this year: $81.1 billion.

The year has not been successful also for Changpeng Zhao, the founder and CEO of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance. He lost $84.2 billion and now has only $11.7 billion. He is currently ranked 154th on the list of billionaires.

His former rival, FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried, was less fortunate. In just a few weeks, he lost almost all of his wealth. His fortune at its peak was about $26 billion, and at the beginning of November—even before the bankruptcy of his cryptocurrency exchange—it was $15.6 billion. But he now has about $100,000 left in his bank account. And naturally, he is out of the list of billionaires.

And some persons on this list—namely, Sam Bankman-Fried, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk—are on the list of the UK newspaper The Guardian’s lousiest tech bosses of 2022.