Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, has lost $100 billion in wealth in the past year due to a steep decline in Tesla’s share price.
The drop in wealth is the largest ever recorded on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, yet Musk remains the wealthiest person in the world. Most of Musk’s wealth is tied to stock ownership of his companies, according to Insider. He owns a 15% stake in Tesla, causing Musk to lose $8.6 billion Monday after shares plunged to their lowest price in two years, Insider reports. (RELATED: Elon Musk Fires Even More Twitter Employees)
Elon Musk’s losses for 2022 topped $100 billion as shares of Tesla dropped to the lowest level in two years https://t.co/vm81t2PNhF
— Bloomberg (@business) November 21, 2022
Shares in Tesla have lost 52% of their value this year and 21% in the past month, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company recalled 321,000 vehicles Sunday because of a software glitch causing taillights to intermittently fail to illuminate, Reuters reported.
In a report by Tesla to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the vehicles represent 1% of the company’s total and the defect was observed by customers over the past month. The 2023 Model 3 and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles were affected by the defect, the company says.
Another problem for Tesla is China’s unpredictable covid lockdowns, with a city near Beijing returning to lockdown measures, Yahoo Finance reported. The lockdown could put production and sales at risk for Tesla, which lowered its prices in China earlier in the year due to falling demand, Yahoo Finance explained.
Tesla shares began trading Tuesday at $167.87 per share at a volume of 12,687,282, CNBC’s data shows.