Elon Musk is no longer a trillionaire after a sharp global sell-off in technology stocks wiped an estimated $500bn (£379bn) from his personal fortune.
The billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk had recently become the first individual to reach the trillion-dollar milestone following a record-breaking listing surge for his rocket company SpaceX earlier this month.
However, shares in SpaceX have since fallen by around 30% from their peak, while Tesla was also caught in a broader technology market downturn on Tuesday, June 23.
His net worth now stands at $957.1bn, according to analysis by Bloomberg, while calculations by Forbes suggest his fortune previously peaked at $1.45tn last week.
The drop in Musk’s wealth over the past week exceeds the total fortune of Larry Page, whose estimated net worth stands at just under $297bn.
The decline comes amid two consecutive days of losses on Wall Street, with more than $89bn wiped from Tesla’s market value after its shares fell 5.8% on Tuesday. Chipmaker Nvidia also dropped 4.1% during the same session.
Traders have warned that further volatility may follow after memory-chip producer Micron Technology prepares to release its third-quarter results, amid concerns that artificial intelligence valuations may be overheating.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs cautioned that AI-linked stocks could be vulnerable if there are signs of slowing investment from major tech firms.
Ben McKeown, an investment manager at Dowgate Wealth, said Musk’s fortune remains highly exposed due to its concentration in two major holdings.
He said: “The old adage is, you concentrate to build wealth and diversify to keep it. Musk is the most extreme example of this.
Almost his entire net worth sits in Tesla and SpaceX, which have been extremely volatile, especially SpaceX as the shareholder base starts to be unlocked and becomes free to sell.”
Musk had briefly become the world’s first trillionaire on June 12 following the listing surge of SpaceX, which saw its shares jump as much as 67% in its first three days of trading after an IPO that valued the company at more than $1.8tn.
However, the stock later fell for three consecutive sessions, erasing around $928bn in market value from a peak of $2.9tn to just over $2tn, before a slight recovery.
The scale of his recent wealth decline is now considered the largest on record, surpassing his previous loss in 2022 when his fortune fell by an estimated $165bn amid a slump in Tesla shares.
Another billionaire affected by recent market turbulence is Larry Ellison, whose net worth peaked at around $400bn last September before falling to approximately $210bn following a major sell-off in Oracle shares.
