Elon Musk loses his place as the world's richest man

It's a tough life for the 'Chief Twit', as Elon Musk just lost his place as the world's richest man.

Forbes' real time billionaire list showed that the Twitter CEO dropped down to second place earlier today (7 December).

Taking first spot was Bernard Arnault, the French business magnate and chief executive of luxury brand Louis Vuitton's parent company LVMH, and his family.

Shortly after, Musk jumped up to first place again, only to then fall back down – we can't keep up!

At the time of writing, Forbes states that Arnault and his family are worth a whopping $185.1 billion after enjoying a $74 million boost.

REUTERS/Alamy

Meanwhile, the SpaceX founder's value is said to have dropped by $4.5 billion, taking his worth to $184.6 billion.

The news arrives after the value of Musk's Tesla stake dropped as investors dumped shares on the electric vehicle company over concerns that he would be more focused on his $44 billion takeover of Twitter.

It's safe to say the online community doesn't have too much sympathy for the multi-billionaire, with one writing on Twitter: "If anyone have ever been worthy of the title 'Number 2' it's definitely Elon!!"

"Anyway, he is not poor," said another, while a third added, "Poor guy. He must be heartbroken. Where do I send the $8?"

Twitter

Not everyone was quite so scathing, however, including this person who said: "Elon Musk would still be the richest man on earth right now if he didn’t spend 44 billion on Twitter to save free speech.

"He did that for us!"

Speaking of 'free speech', Musk's hardcore ideals on the matter has seen the likes of Kanye West and Donald Trump being handed their Twitter pages back.

It didn't last long for Ye, though – he's since had his account suspended by Twitter again after tweeting a picture of a swastika combined with the Star of David, the symbol of the Jewish faith.

The rapper had only recently been readmitted to the platform, posting a tweet reading 'Shalom', after getting banned for making anti-Semitic comments.

Speaking about Kanye's ban on a Twitter Spaces Q&A, the Tesla founder was asked about freedom of expression on the social media site, which given the time it was asked was a clear reference to the rapper's actions.

Musk – who later tweeted that he'd 'tried his best' with Kanye and that the rapper had been banned again because he 'violated our rule against incitement to violence' – gave his view of things.

He said: "I personally wanted to punch Kanye, so that was definitely inciting me to violence.

"That's not cool.

"At some point you have to say what is incitement to violence because it is against the law in the US.

"Posting swastikas in what obviously is not a good way is an incitement to violence."