A massive sell-off of Tesla shares slashed Elon Musk’s net worth by $25.1 billion, one of the biggest declines ever seen in history, as the 50-year-old billionaire now has a net-worth of $216 billion.
Tesla shares dropped more than 11% in Thursday trading after it said it wouldn’t be producing new models in 2022 and that it hasn’t yet begun work on a hotly anticipated electric car priced at $25,000, as previously stated.
Following Wednesday’s trading, Tesla’s CEO announced the news to shareholders on a 2021 fourth-quarter earnings call, noting that the company continues to experience chip shortages.
Investors were disappointed when Tesla announced it would not release the Cybertruck, its sci-fi-inspired metal pickup announced in November 2019, or the Semi, a heavy-duty truck that the company announced in November 2017.
Rather, Tesla executives said the company will focus on scaling production at new and existing factories, as well as improving its driver-assistance technology, which is currently offered as a standard option, Autopilot, and as a premium option, Full Self-Driving.
Across the board, billionaires have had a bad week as everything from e-commerce to cryptocurrency to online gaming has tumbled. Markets dropped to their lowest level since the pandemic as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates.
Recall, the world’s wealthiest person, Elon Musk, ended 2021 with a fortune of $273.5 billion. Second in line was Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos – $194 billion and third in line was LVMH chairman, Bernard Arnault – $177 billion.
Over $54 billion has been lost by Musk just in January. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index has never declined so much in a single month.
