Our latest update on the “Musk Empire” was his Twitter Takeover, up until he achieved notoriety as the first person to ever lose 200 billion dollars. Towards the end of 2022, Bloomberg publicly announced that Musk was the first person to ever lose 200 billion dollars in personal wealth. Though, a part of Musk’s wealth has to be attributed to his skills in doing business, so how could the same person manage to lose more than half of his wealth?

A significant portion of Musk’s wealth is tied to Tesla. Hence, many reporters have examined Musk’s investments in Tesla to discern where a majority of his money has been lost. The prominent car company is known for making strides in the electric vehicle industry such as increasing vehicle autonomy to prevent accidents caused by human error to building better. All while simultaneously amassing significant amounts of revenue. However, once the fourth-quarter deliveries (a report that details a company’s financials in the last three month period of the year) were announced, people began to question whether or not it was worth its trillion-dollar standing from the beginning of 2022. Tesla, Inc.’s immense growth and worth were indicators to Wall Street that the company would grow exponentially in 2022.  Tesla ended the year with a worth of 386 billion- which is more than the twelve largest automakers on the planet combined. Nonetheless, people expected the appraisal of the company to be closer to big tech corporations, particularly Google, Apple, & Amazon. 

 A key move made by Musk that seemed to send the company spiraling was the rebates for buyers. Tesla initially offered a discount of $3,750. Yet, with two weeks left of the year, the discount doubled to $7,500. It was said that this discount was made to clear out inventory before the end of the year- but it had a far more negative effect. Thus, the discount gave way panic amongst investors, and resulted in a 37% plummet of the stock in December. 

Additionally, it appears that Musk’s purchase of Twitter was disadvantageous for his net worth, and even his reputation. Tesla investors are getting impatient with Musk and his fixation with Twitter. Thus, many major shareholders of Tesla have urged Elon Musk to devote his energy to Tesla as it’s significantly greater, and more profitable than Twitter. Musk swiftly responded to the backlash by saying “he hasn’t missed a major Tesla meeting since taking on responsibility for Twitter” ( CNN ).

The once “richest man alive” has now become the runner up to Barnard Arnault, the current CEO & Chair of LMVH: a French corporation with several well-known subsidiaries, including Louis Vuitton, and Tiffany & Co. The question that remains is, can Musk come back from this immense loss? Or is it all downhill from here?