Elon Musk has been dethroned as the richest person in the world.
Earlier this week, it was reported that South African billionaire Elon Musk had lost his status as the richest person in the world to his long-time rival Jeff Bezos.
Why? Because Tesla shares took a tumble.
As per a report published by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Monday (March 4), the 60-year-old Amazon founder snatched the throne once again after shares in Tesla Inc. plummeted by 7.2% which meant that Musk's net worth was set at $197.7 billion while Bezos' fortune ranked at a whopping $200.3 billion.
Tesla shares drastically lowered in value after preliminary data showed shipments from its factory in Shanghai falling to the lowest it has been in over a year.
As for Amazon, it was reported to be "coming off its best online sales growth since early in the pandemic."
The outlet also confirmed that this was the first time Bezos had topped Bloomberg's prestigious ranking of the world's richest people since 2021.
However, by Friday (March 8), both entrepreneurs had been knocked off the top spot by French billionaire and CEO of the luxury group LVMH, Bernard Arnault, and with Tesla gaining some traction back, Musk has claimed the runner-up position while Bezos clings to the top three rankings... just about.
It comes as Musk previously discussed how his wealth will be affected by a proposed tax increase on the rich in the United States by some members of the Democrats following the announcement that Musk is the wealthiest private citizen in history.
"A lot of the push for higher government involvements and expropriation of assets by the government is really pushed by a bunch of politicians who are saying that resources shouldn’t be in the control of private individuals—they should be in the control of the government. They are basically saying they want control of the assets," Musk previously said in an interview with TIME from SpaceX's 'Starbase' site in Boca Chica, Texas.
Elsewhere in the interview, Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society and a long-time friend of Musk's also said that even with all that wealth, Musk wants more - he wants "eternal glory."
"He is a humanist - not in the sense of being a nice person, because he isn’t," says Zubrin who met Musk in 2001, said. "He wants eternal glory for doing great deeds, and he is an asset to the human race because he defines a great deed as something that is great for humanity. He is greedy for glory. Money to him is a means, not an end. Who today evaluates Thomas Edison on the basis of which of his inventions turned a profit?”
It's a good point though, right? Scary, but still valid.
Alongside projects such as Space X and Tesla, Musk's wealth can also be contributed to X, Neuralink and Open AI, two AI agencies that he cofounded.