BERLIN, GERMANY DECEMBER 01: SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the … [+]
It was far from a quiet weekend for Elon Musk. After losing more than $20 billion last week–enough to knock him from the top spot on Forbes’ ranking of the world’s billionaires–Musk rebranded Twitter as X on Sunday and began offering 84-month loans on new Teslas over the weekend. By the end of Monday’s trading day, his fortune had bounced back in a big way. With Tesla shares up by 3.5% since Friday’s close, Musk is nearly $6 billion richer — and once again the planet’s richest person.
Musk’s net worth now stands at $242.4 billion, according to Forbes’ estimates. That’s $7.8 billion more than French luxury goods tycoon Bernard Arnault, who has fallen to second place after shares of his conglomerate LVMH sagged by 1.5% on Monday, shaving nearly $3 billion from his fortune.
It’s been a tumultuous few days for Tesla stock, kicked off by a selloff following negative analyst responses to the electronic automaker’s second quarter earnings report which called into question whether the company is overvalued. By the end of the day Monday, however, the stock had regained some of its losses, closing the day 3.5% higher than Friday, though still nearly 8% below the 2023 high Tesla stock was sitting at last Wednesday, just before Tesla released its earnings report.
Still, even relatively small blips in the company’s stock price can send Musk’s fortune soaring, given that he owns around 23% of the $843 billion (market capitalization) business, between stock and stock options. Musk himself commented on the wild swings during last Wednesday’s earnings call, paraphrasing Warren Buffett on the whims of the market: “Imagine you’re living in your house and some crazy, manic-depressive guy comes and stands outside your house and yells property prices at you,” Musk said on the call. “It’s a different price every day, but the house is still the same house.”
After spending the weekend in Arnault’s shadow, Musk is once again the richest person in the neighborhood–for now.