Elon Musk might be a cash-poor centibillionaire, but that hasn’t stopped him from ending 2023 as the world’s richest person – at least on paper – with a net worth of $229 billion.
The chief executive of electric vehicle maker Tesla and owner of X has added $92 billion, or 67.2 per cent, to his personal fortune over the past year despite the continuing controversies related to his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Bloomberg lists Mr Musk’s cash holding as $0. His private assets include SpaceX, valued at $53.2 billion, The Boring Company ($3.3 billion) and X Corp ($9.32 billion). The value of X has dropped 55 per cent to $19 billion, according to a report by technology news website The Verge.
His one publicly listed asset is Tesla, valued at $102 billion at the close of trade on Friday, while he has $7.44 billion in miscellaneous liabilities, according to Bloomberg.
However, Mr Musk’s lack of cash doesn’t appear to concern him. In a post on social media platform X in October, he responded to a report by US internet news website Daily Dot that claimed he earned an average of about $142,690 a minute, saying it was a “silly metric”.
“Such a silly metric. It’s not a giant pile of cash. I really just own stock in the companies that I was instrumental in creating,” Mr Musk, 52, said in the X post.
“Technically, I ‘lose’ way more than that every time Tesla stock randomly drops.”
Tesla is part of the “Magnificent Seven”, a group of mega-cap US technology companies that includes Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia and Meta Platforms, which has driven stock markets higher and accounted for the majority of the S&P 500’s returns this year.
Most of Mr Musk’s fortune is tied to Tesla’s stock, which has surged 129.8 per cent this year to end 2023’s final day of trading on Friday at $248.48.
Still, Tesla’s stock price is a long way off its November 2021 peak of $407.36 – a time when Mr Musk’s net worth also hit its highest value of $338 billion, making him the world’s first member of the $300 billion club, albeit briefly.
Meanwhile, Bernard Arnault, chairman of French luxury group LVMH, lost his world’s richest ranking to end 2023 as the second-wealthiest person with a net worth of $179 billion.
His personal fortune rose a modest 10.5 per cent, or $17 billion, in 2023 as demand for luxury goods was dampened by fears of a softening US economy. Those fears have since retreated and LVMH shares have risen 5.69 per cent so far this year to end 2023 at €733.60 ($809.86).
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