Elon Musk Is No Longer The Richest Man In The World

After briefly becoming the richest person on the planet, Tesla CEO Elon Musk lost his position after his fortune fell by nearly $14 billion in just one day.

Shares of Tesla, his electric-vehicle maker, dropped nearly 8% on Monday, causing his net worth to decrease $13.5 billion, to $176.2 billion. After surpassing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to be the richest man on Earth last Friday, Musk is now back in second place, according to Forbes.

Musk’s net worth is now $6 billion less than that of Bezos whose net worth is $182.1 billion. On May trading, shares of Amazon also fell by 2%, causing Bezos’ fortune to drop $3.6 billion.

In 2020, Musk received numerous billion-dollar tranches of options for each milestone Tesla hit in its capitalization. At Monday’s closing prices, it seems like Musk is qualified for another tranche of 8.44 million options that are worth about $6.25 billion. However, these options haven’t been attributed to Musk since they haven’t been publicly certified by the board.

Backed by the price surge of Tesla shares, Musk’s fortune has increased by around $150 billion since March 2020. By the end of December 2020, the company joined the S&P 500 Index, driving the stock even higher. As the most valuable automaker in the world, Tesla manufactured 500,000 cars in 2020. Compared to GM or Toyota, this is only a fraction.

Even losing nearly $14 billion in his net worth, Musk is still $20 billion richer than the third-richest person, Bernard Arnault, a French luxury tycoon with a net worth of $154.6 billion.

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