Elon Musk sets Guinness World Record for biggest loss of personal wealth in history
Topics: News, Elon Musk, Technology, Money
Rachel Lang
Featured Image Credit: AC NewsPhoto / Alamy. Simon Belcher / Alamy.
Topics: News, Elon Musk, Technology, Money
Elon Musk is no stranger to breaking records, but we're pretty sure this is one accolade that he'd rather not have.
Musk has officially broken the world record for the largest loss of personal fortune in history, according to the Guinness World Records. Ouch.
Forbes estimated Musk's wealth has plummeted roughly USD$182 billion (AUD$263 billion, £153 billion) since November 2021.
Guinness World Records did note that 'the exact figure [of Musk’s loss] is almost impossible to ascertain', but other outlets have suggested Musk's hip-pocket haemorrhage to total more than $200 billion.
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Just to put that into perspective, that’s almost the same as the GDP of Greece. Double ouch.
Regardless of if it is the latter or the former, what is for certain is Twitter's new head honcho has knocked the previous record out of the park.
Guinness World Records says Japanese investor Masayoshi Son lost USD$58.6 billion (AUD$84.7 billion, £48.1 million) in 2000; a paltry number in comparison to Musk's monstrous financial fall.
Musk's dwindling fortune was the result of his company Tesla experiencing a major drop-off in value.
The 51-year-old had faced problems with Tesla due to China's severe lockdown restrictions, their biggest market outside of the US, as per the Sydney Morning Herald.
Throw in a couple of recall scandals, for which the company saw over 3.76 million vehicles being affected due to technical faults and kablooey, and there goes most of X Æ A-12’s inheritance.
To add insult to massive, massive injury, Musk's huge loss was enough to see him lose his slot as the world's richest man.
The top spot now belongs to French business magnate Bernard Arnault, who is the CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy, the world's largest luxury goods company.
Musk, however, seems confident things will turn around for him.
Despite losing more money in 2022 than most people (or countries) will have in their entire lifetime, he tweeted: "Long-term fundamentals are extremely strong. Short-term market madness is unpredictable."
Musk's enormous loss did come as a win for some though.
It spared a few of his mega-rich mates from the same embarrassment.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would have taken home the least-wanted prize ever in Guinness' book of records after suffering a staggering loss of USD$80 billion (AUD$115.5 billion, £45.5 billion) in 2022.
Mark Zuckerberg also broke Masayoshi Son’s record with a loss of USD$78 billion (AUD$112.7 billion, £64.1 billion).
Looks like 2022 wasn't a great year to be mega-rich.
Musk is now sitting at second best with an approximated net worth of $146.5 billion (AUD$211.7 billion, £120.4 billion), as per Forbes' rich list.