Musk briefly loses title as world’s richest person
Twitter owner and Tesla boss Elon Musk briefly lost his title as the richest person in the world on Wednesday after being overtaken by French fashion billionaire Bernard Arnault, according to Forbes.
On Forbes’ list of “Real-Time Billionaires,” Musk briefly fell to second place on Wednesday, falling behind Bernard Arnault, CEO of French luxury brand LVMH, which produces Louis Vuitton luxury goods and Hennessy whiskey.
Forbes has now pegged Musk’s wealth at $184.9 billion, just $1 billion more than Arnault, who is thought to be worth $184.7 billion.
“It won’t be surprising if the two men continue to fluctuate in Forbes’ rankings of the world’s wealthiest,” Forbes noted.
“The two men’s fortunes are nearly the same - separated by just $200 million.”The article also claimed that Musk had experienced a “dramatic collapse of Tesla’s share price,” which is down 56 percent in 2022, while Arnault had benefited from LVMH’s shares remaining largely steady this year.
Right-wing influencers
The way Musk interacts on Twitter with right-wing influencers may be having an effect on Tesla stock prices. According to Forbes, Musk’s wealth peaked in November 2021, when he was valued at $320 billion.
In order to pay for his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Musk recently sold off about $4 billion of Tesla stock. Twitter is currently facing problems like layoffs and wary advertisers concerned with the platform’s future.
When the news of Musk’s purchase of Twitter first broke earlier this year, he had already sold blocks of Tesla shares for $15.4 billion.
Musk’s wealth in general is a difficult to quantify since much of his money is tied up in his private companies, including rocket and internet firm SpaceX, tunneling outfit The Boring Company, and Neuralink, which wants to put computer chips in people’s brains.
