Even though he’s reportedly the richest man in the world, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is watching as large chunks of his fortune spiral down the proverbial toilet, costing him billions of dollars and threatening to turn him into a former billionaire.
According to Business Insider, Musk lost $10 billion in a single day after allegations of sexual misconduct were lodged against him:
Tesla CEO Elon Musk lost $10 billion in just a single day after claims of sexual misconduct against him emerged.
He was worth about $212 billion on Thursday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. After news of the allegations broke on Thursday night, his wealth fell to around $201 billion, the index showed.
According to Insider’s report, SpaceX, the aerospace firm founded by Musk, paid a flight attendant $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim against Musk in 2018. Musk has denied the claim.
In recent weeks, Musk has been at the center of the business and media world as a result of his offer to buy Twitter for the price of $44 billion, with a large part of the purchase price expected to be covered by Musk’s stock holdings in Tesla.
But Tesla stock has tanked over the past week or so, leading some financial experts to suggest that Musk’s complaints about Twitter being filled with bots is merely a face-saving way for him to back out of the deal now that his cash reserve is running low:
Tesla’s stock performance in public markets has the most significant impact on Musk’s wealth. Musk owns about 15% of the electric carmaker, per BBC. After news of the allegations emerged, Tesla’s share price tanked 6.4%.
But Musk’s sexual misconduct news and related financial fallout is just the latest incident in a protracted wealth decline since the start of this year. Per Bloomberg’s estimate, he is now more than $69 billion poorer year-to-date. That’s partly because Tesla’s stock price was pulled down amid a global stock-market selloff as investors worried about the health of the global economy.
Ironically, the Twitter deal could wind up sinking Musk’s overall financial standing:
Last week alone, the carmaker’s stock was down 14%, wiping out about $110 billion from its market valuation, Bloomberg reported. “As long as the Twitter deal is out there, and as long as Tesla’s stock is falling, people worry that Musk will have to sell more stock and would get distracted and not pay as much attention to Tesla as he should,” Gary Black, founder and managing partner at the actively-managed ETF Future Fund LLC, told Bloomberg.
Considering some of the vile things Musk has been spewing on social media lately, many are wondering if perhaps he’s losing it mentally, too.
Recently, Musk announced he was putting together a “hardcore litigation department” at Tesla, adding, “There will be blood.”
The blood appears to be red ink hemorrhaging from the accounts of Elon Musk.
