Shruti Sneha, Pune
Elon Musk isn’t the richest person on the planet for the first time in almost nine months. With Monday’s 7.2% drop in Tesla Inc. shares, Musk lost his top rank to Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Bezos is worth $200.3 billion, whereas Musk is currently worth $197.7 billion. Since 2021, Bezos, the 60-year-old founder of Amazon.com Inc., has not finished first on Bloomberg’s list of the richest individuals.
The wealth gap between the 52-year-old Musk and Bezos, which was formerly as high as $142 billion, has been narrowing as the prices of Tesla and Amazon’s shares fluctuate in different directions.
Although both are part of the renowned Magnificent Seven stocks that have driven the US equity markets, since late 2022, Amazon’s shares have more than doubled and are on the verge of reaching all-time highs. Tesla has dropped almost 50% from its peak in 2021.
Tesla’s stock fell on Monday as preliminary data showed that shipments from its Shanghai plant fell to the lowest level in over a year. In the meantime, online sales at Amazon have increased more than they have since the pandemic’s start.
Pay package
After a Delaware judge invalidated Musk’s $55 billion compensation plan at Tesla, where he serves as CEO, his wealth may suffer much more. The decision sided with an investor who had opposed Musk’s payment plan, which was the largest in history.
One of Musk’s most valuable possessions, in addition to his stakes in SpaceX and Tesla, are the options that were a part of the abandoned plan. The Bloomberg index still considers them when calculating his net worth.
The majority of Bezos’ wealth is derived from his 9% ownership of Amazon.com. Even after selling 50 million shares of the corporation for almost $8.5 billion last month, he remains the company’s largest stakeholder.
He is still the company’s top shareholder, despite having sold 50 million shares for about $8.5 billion last month. At the top of the wealth rankings, Bezos has an easy ride. He initially overtook Microsoft Inc. co-founder Bill Gates in 2017 to take the title of richest person in the world.
But after a significant spike in Tesla’s stock price, Bezos and Musk were fighting for the top spot for the entirety of 2021. By year’s end, he had fallen well behind and hasn’t been back in first place until recently.
The chairman of the largest luxury goods company in the world, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is 74-year-old Bernard Arnault, with a net worth of $197.5 billion. In addition, he is among the richest persons on the globe.