Assets Increased by 116 Trillion This Year Alone... World's Richest Billionaire Musk

Stock Prices Volatile Amid Various Adverse Factors
Net Assets Increase by 117 Trillion This Year to 297 Trillion
2nd Place Arnaud 230 Trillion, 3rd Place Bezos 226 Trillion

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has maintained his position as the 'world's richest person' despite various adversities, including Tesla's stock price volatility.

According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index on the 11th, Musk's net worth was estimated at $226 billion (approximately 297.6 trillion KRW). This represents an increase of $88.7 billion (approximately 116.8 trillion KRW) compared to the end of last year. Among the 500 individuals included in the Billionaires Index, Musk had the highest total net worth and the largest increase this year.

Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, who maintains the position of the world's richest person
Photo by Reuters Yonhap News

Concerns about a slowdown in electric vehicle demand have recently exerted downward pressure on Tesla's stock price, and ongoing management issues at X (formerly Twitter) related to Musk's support of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have emerged, but there has been no change in his net worth ranking.

The main factor affecting Musk's asset size is Tesla's stock price. According to Forbes, as of the 1st, Musk holds about 23% of Tesla shares through stocks and options, and Tesla shares account for about two-thirds of his assets. Tesla's stock price, which exceeded $400 in November 2021 during the COVID-19 liquidity boom, plunged to the $101 range intraday in January. However, it rebounded to $299 in July before closing at $243.84 on the 8th (local time).

Musk also owns the rocket company SpaceX and the social media platform X. X, which he acquired in October last year for $44 billion (approximately 57.9 trillion KRW) and holds about 74% of the shares, has seen its corporate value drop to less than half. After acquiring X, Musk carried out intense restructuring, laying off more than half of the entire workforce?about 3,700 employees?causing controversy. Last month, he posted content supporting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on X, leading major advertisers such as IBM, Apple, Walt Disney, and Walmart to suspend their ads. Additionally, in a recent public interview with the New York Times (NYT), Musk harshly criticized the loss of advertisers on X using strong language, exacerbating the issue.

At the beginning of the year, Musk and Bernard Arnault, chairman of the French luxury group LVMH, traded places for the top spot among the richest people due to Tesla's sharp stock price decline, but Musk regained the lead around June. LVMH's stock price has continued to decline from July to October amid a slowdown in the luxury industry but has recently reduced the extent of the drop.

According to Forbes' billionaire rankings, Musk became the world's richest person in September 2021 and mostly held the position until December last year. He briefly lost the top spot to Arnault but reclaimed it on June 8.

Bernard Arnault, Chairman of Louis Vuitton Mo?t Hennessy (LVMH) Group

According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index as of the 11th, the second richest person is Arnault (estimated net worth $175 billion, approximately 230.4 trillion KRW), followed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($172 billion, approximately 226.5 trillion KRW) in third place. Fourth is Microsoft (MS) founder Bill Gates ($135 billion, approximately 177.8 trillion KRW), and fifth is former MS CEO Steve Ballmer (about $129 billion, approximately 169.9 trillion KRW).

As of the 11th, the second largest increase in net worth this year was Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta ($74.8 billion, approximately 98.5 trillion KRW), third was Bezos ($64.7 billion, approximately 85.2 trillion KRW), fourth was Ballmer ($43.3 billion, approximately 57 trillion KRW), and fifth was Alphabet (Google's parent company) co-founder Larry Page (about $39.3 billion, approximately 51.7 trillion KRW), mostly figures from big tech companies.

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, the biggest beneficiary of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, saw his net worth increase by $28.4 billion (approximately 37.4 trillion KRW) this year, reaching $42.2 billion (approximately 55.6 trillion KRW).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.