Elon Musk has reportedly now broken the world record for the largest loss of personal fortune in history after a bad year for his finances.
According to a report released by Guinness World Records, the Tesla CEO has seen a dramatic fall in his earnings as well as his overall net worth since 2021.
Using figures from Forbes, the report stated that the 51-year-old has lost approximately $182 billion since November 2021 although some other sources have suggested that it could actually be closer to $200 billion.
Though the exact figure is almost impossible to pin down, it was said that Musk’s total losses "far surpass the previous record of $58.6 billion" which was set by Japanese tech investor Masayoshi Son back in 2000.
So what was the reason for this decline?
Well, the outlet claimed Musk’s net worth dropped from a peak of $320bn in 2021 to $138bn as of January 2023, largely due to the "poor performance of Tesla’s stock."
The value of this said stock plummeted 65% in 2022, which in turn deeply affected Musk's overall rankings.
On December 30, after the annual market came to a close, Musk tweeted: "Long-term fundamentals are extremely strong. Short-term market madness is unpredictable" which seems to give an indication that the billionaire is well aware of his current misfortunes.
Despite this though, Tesla is still "the most valuable car company in the world", as per Guinness World Records, with a market cap of over $100 billion, which is larger than their competitor, Toyota.
Things only got alarmingly worse in October 2022 when the South African entrepreneur bought Twitter for roughly $44 billion.
According to the Wall Street Journal, back in November, Musk stated that Twitter had suffered "a massive drop in revenue" and was losing $4 million a day.
The platform's main source of revenue depends on advertising, but when the 51-year-old acquired the platform, he tried to shift that to other means of fresh cash, but the financial health of the business is still fully undetermined.
Due to a combination of all these factors, Musk subsequently lost his title as World's Richest Person, handing it over to 73-year-old French billionaire Bernard Arnault.
Arnault is the founder of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) and has an estimated net worth of $190 billion.
But don't worry, Musk is still securely sitting in the number two spot so he won't be filing for bankruptcy any time soon. And if his investments see a little push in value over the next few months, he has a good chance at reclaiming the crown again.