Elon Musk can add a new title to his resume: Guinness World Record holder.
The “Technoking” of Tesla made it into the record books thanks to an abysmal 2022 which saw his fortune shrink by US$182 billion, the organization announced Friday in a release that cited data from Forbes.
Guinness noted that although “the exact figure [of Musk’s loss] is almost impossible to ascertain,” with some outlets estimating that he lost more than US$200 billion, the Twitter owner demolished the previous record: a US$58,6 billion loss by Japanese investor Masayoshi Son in 2000.
Musk’s shrinking fortune was largely due to the steep slide of Tesla shares, which lost roughly 65 percent of their value during the company’s worst year on record. The loss was enough to knock him off his perch as the richest man in the world — a title now held by luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault.
Of course, Musk isn’t the only billionaire whose fortune took a hit in 2022. American billionaires collectively lost US$660 billion last year, CNBC Make It previously reported.
The 53-year-old’s wealth decline spared Amazon founder Jeff Bezos from taking the Guinness World Record. Bezos’s $80 billion loss in 2022 would have firmly given him the “largest loss” title were it not for Musk. Fellow tech CEO Mark Zuckerberg also broke Masayoshi Son’s record with his US$78 billion loss.
Musk’s fortune once sat as high as US$320 billion in late 2021. As of January 10, Forbes estimates that his net worth sits at US$142.1 billion, making him the nuber 2 richest person in the world ahead of India’s Gautam Adani (US$125.1 billion. — CNBC
