(PresidentialHill.com)- Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, has become the first person in history to lose $200 billion of his net worth.
That’s a massive amount of money, for sure, but it only dropped Musk from being the richest man in the world to being the second richest. CNN reported recently that Musk now has an estimated net worth of $137 billion, which is a far cry from the $340 billion it was at back in November of 2021.
Part of that dramatic drop in his net worth came from his $44 billion purchase of social media giant Twitter. However, much of the reason for Musk’s drop in net worth is related to public sentiment around him and his other companies.
Musk’s deal for Twitter became very public and very nasty very quickly. He went back and forth with Twitter executives over the deal, criticizing many of the company’s leaders right on public Twitter messages. He even tried to back out of the deal at one point, though he ultimately moved forward with its closing.
After taking over control of Twitter, Musk has made plenty of headlines for his management of the company. He initiated massive layoffs almost immediately in a cost-cutting move that he said was necessary for the long-term financial health of the company.
He’s instituted new policies for verification of official accounts, switching from it being a free service offered to public figures to one that anyone can pay a monthly fee to get. He’s also rolled back many of Twitter’s censorship policies in seeking to promote more free speech.
Along with that last part, Twitter reinstated some controversial figures who were once banned from the platform altogether, including former President Donald Trump. Musk left that decision up to users on Twitter, all of whom had a chance to vote in a poll on whether Trump should be reinstated.
All of that has led to much skepticism in the market, which has translated over to Tesla, the electric car company that he founded and runs.
In 2022, Tesla stock dropped by about two-thirds. Part of the reason for that was that Musk sold billions of dollars in stock that he owned in the company so that he could finance $21 billion of the Twitter deal that he put forth with his own money.
Some Tesla investors worried that the Twitter deal would compromise Musk’s focus on Tesla, and they sold their shares as a result. Much of Musk’s personal wealth still remains in the stock he owns at Tesla, as he’s a 14% owner of the company. As such, the biggest share of his drop in net worth came from the major decline that Tesla’s stock experienced last year.
At the end of last year, Tesla total worth was $386 billion, which is certainly nothing to scoff at. However, just one year earlier, it was much, much higher than that.
