Elon Musk, Larry Ellison and other billionaires lose $23.5 billion in 24 hours

Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Jeff Bezos recorded a cumulative $23.5 billion decline in their net worths in 24 hours, following movements in technology stocks in the market.

The decline was contained in estimates from the Forbes Billionaires Index, which tracks changes in the wealth of the world’s richest individuals based largely on movements in their publicly traded assets.

Together these billionaires rank in the world’s top 10 billionaire list controlling multi trillion dollar companies across the world.

What the data is saying

Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, recorded the largest decline, with his fortune falling by about $6.5 billion, or 3.35%.

• Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, lost approximately $6 billion, representing a 0.68% decline in his net worth.
• Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, also recorded an estimated $6 billion decline, while Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lost about $5 billion.
• Charles Ergen, the chairman of Dish Network and EchoStar, recorded a sharper percentage decline. His fortune fell by about $2.9 billion, or nearly 20 percent.

Forbes data reveals that these losses came against a mixed backdrop for technology stocks, with investors weighing the enormous sums being committed to artificial intelligence against questions about whether those investments can generate sustainable returns.

Tesla, in particular, has taken a different approach from several of its technology peers. While Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet have accumulated multibillion-dollar stakes in artificial-intelligence companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, Tesla’s disclosed investment in the sector has been comparatively limited.

Get up to speed

Tesla has invested about $2 billion in SpaceX, another company controlled by Musk. That investment has already increased in value by roughly $1 billion, according to the report.

• Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI has had a much larger effect on its financial statements. The company said its investment contributed about $5 billion to net income for fiscal 2026.
• Amazon and Alphabet have also benefited from the rising valuations of their investments in Anthropic. Amazon’s equity investments rose sharply in the second quarter, largely because of the increase in the value of its Anthropic stake. Alphabet, meanwhile, reported tens of billions of dollars in unrealized gains from investments in private companies.

Those gains have helped lift the earnings of the technology giants even as their underlying businesses continue to face scrutiny over the enormous cost of building artificial-intelligence infrastructure.

Tesla’s shares have been particularly volatile. After falling 26 percent in July, the stock rebounded about 18 percent in August. The company has also emerged as a potential beneficiary of a closer combination with SpaceX, a development that could bring Tesla’s vehicles, robotics and artificial-intelligence ambitions closer to SpaceX’s satellite and communications businesses.

What you should know

Musk’s latest loss comes just weeks after his fortune recorded one of its biggest single-day increases.

Nairametrics reported on August 18 that Musk’s net worth had risen by $30.7 billion in 24 hours to approximately $894.9 billion, according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires ranking. The increase represented a 3.55 percent gain and kept him at the top of the global billionaire rankings at the time.

Much of Musk’s wealth is linked to his holdings in Tesla and SpaceX, alongside interests in companies including xAI, Neuralink and The Boring Company.

His fortune has been particularly sensitive to movements in SpaceX. On June 12, SpaceX priced its long-awaited initial public offering at $135 a share, giving the company an estimated valuation of about $1.8 trillion.