Elon Musks $44 billion bet on Twitter might be costing him the title of worlds richest man.
In real-time rankings from Forbes, Musk slipped into second place briefly early Wednesday, following his big cash outlay for the social media company and the subsequent drop in Teslas stock price. Whether Musk stood in first or second place was often changing moment by moment.
Close on his heels and seemingly poised to take the bragging rights for worlds richest person in the near term is Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of Louis Vuittons parent company LVMH, with an estimated $185.7 billion. At times Wednesday, his fortune topped Musks but as of 11:30 a.m. ET, he was a hairs width behind.
Musk has held the title of worlds richest person with Forbes since September of 2021, displacing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. But 2022 has seen him laying out big portions of that wealth to purchase Twitter, which was (in part) a catalyst for Teslas volatility, which brought his number even lower.
The Forbes ranking is just one estimation of wealth, of course. Bloomberg maintains its own list of the worlds billionaires and its calculations shows Musk with a $14 billion lead over Arnault as of Dec. 6. (Bloomberg does not update its numbers in real time.)
Musk is hardly hurting for cash, of course. But Teslas loss of more than 47% of its value since the outspoken entrepreneur bought Twitter has impacted his bottom line. Earlier this year, according to Forbes, he was worth more than $270 billion. As of Nov. 22, he had lost $100 billion in net worth this year alone.
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