The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has suffered a significant blow to his fortune. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk’s net worth was $330 billion on Sunday and $301 billion as of Monday evening, a 6.7% decline. In a single day, Monday, Musk’s wealth took a staggering $29 billion hit. His net worth, which peaked at $486 billion in December 2024, has plummeted by $132 billion since the start of this year.
The primary cause of this downturn is attributed to Tesla’s struggling stock performance and declining sales, which have been exacerbated by Musk’s new role as chief of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The company’s sales have plummeted, with orders in Germany dropping by 70% and shipments in China falling by 49%.
Tesla’s stock price reflected this decline, closing at $222.15 on the Nasdaq on Monday, March 10, down 15.43% or $40.52 from its previous value. This marked its steepest single-day decline since September 2020, when it tumbled 21.1% to $110. This sharp drop was part of a broader market downturn, with the Nasdaq 100 falling 4% and the S&P 500 losing 3%. The US stock markets were roiled by concerns of an economic slowdown, sparked by the Trump Administration’s tariff moves, which triggered a heavy selloff across the board.
Undeterred by the decline, Elon Musk expressed optimism about Tesla’s prospects. In response to a tweet about the company’s sliding share price, Musk replied, “It will be fine in the long term.”
Meanwhile, Musk’s foray into politics and government has been making waves, with his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency sparking both praise and criticism. However, his companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, and X, have been struggling, including lawsuits and regulatory scrutiny. In a recent interview with Fox News, Musk admitted that running his companies “with great difficulty” while working for the Trump administration has been a challenging balancing act.
X, his social media platform, suffered a widespread outage on Monday, with tens of thousands of users reporting issues on Website DownDetector. Elon Musk attributed the disruption to a large-scale cyberattack.
Musk took to the platform to explain the situation, stating, “There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X. We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”
Before that, SpaceX’s ambitious Starship rocket program encountered a setback, with the first two launches failing. The latest incident occurred on Thursday, scattering debris over a wide area and causing flight disruptions. The initial explosion in January also left a trail of debris, reaching as far as the Turks and Caicos islands.
Undeterred by these mishaps, Elon Musk downplayed the significance of the failures. Sharing a photo of himself inspecting debris from an earlier rocket failure, Musk tweeted, “Today was a minor setback.” He emphasised that progress is measured in time, and the next Starship is expected to be ready for launch in just 4 to 6 weeks.