Elon Musk has lost more than half of his £300billion fortune this year, making it the biggest loss of wealth in history.
The tech billionaire who in recent months acquired Twitter lost more than half his fortune in just 13 months.
He was previously at the top of the Billionaires Index but has now been overtaken by LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault.
ANDREW KELLY
Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed that Musk’s net worth dropped by £172billion.
He was previously at the top of the Billionaires Index but has now been overtaken by LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault.
His net worth dropped from £280billion to £110billion.
A large contributor to the drop in net worth is Tesla’s stock collapse.
Earlier this week Musk told employees that they should not be "bothered by stock market craziness" after the company's shares tanked nearly 70 per cent this year over jitters on softening demand for electric cars and Musk's distraction with Twitter.
The Tesla and SpaceX owner launched his dramatic takeover bid in April after buying up enough shares to become the site’s biggest shareholder but then rejected a seat on the company’s board.
Following six months of public sparring where the billionaire criticised Twitter’s executives, policies, and statistics around spam accounts – at one point walking away from the deal, Musk gave in and paid the original price of £36billion to take control of the platform.
More than half of the company’s global workforce of more than 7,000 was laid off, then an ultimatum was issued to those remaining which told them to agree to more “hardcore” working with longer hours or leave – this prompted further departures.
Musk ran a poll on his own Twitter in which he asked if he should step down as chief executive of Twitter.
More than 57 per cent of users who voted in the Twitter poll Mr Musk posted on Sunday night said he should step down – a result he said he would abide by.
The Tesla and SpaceX owner launched his dramatic takeover bid in April after buying up enough shares to become the site’s biggest shareholder but then rejected a seat on the company’s board.
Susan Walsh
