Musk loses world’s 2nd-richest person crown to Bernard Arnault

Team Udayavani, May 18, 2021, 12:56 PM IST

The Tesla CEO, Elon Musk lost his spot as the world’s second-richest person to LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault following a 2.2 percent fall in Tesla share prices.

Musk’s net worth now stands at $160.6 billion, down 24% from its January high.

Recently Musk’s statement on Bitcoin had sent its prices tumbling. In a tweet, Musk stated that the electric carmaker was no longer accepting Bitcoin as payment. Over the weekend, Musk wreaked havoc again when he seemed to imply that Tesla may sell or has sold its Bitcoin holdings before later clarifying in a tweet Monday that the company had done no such thing.

Earlier in January, Musk became the world’s richest person with a net worth of around $197 billion as per Forbes’s real-time billionaire’s list. This was aided by the surge in Tesla share prices amid a boom in technology-driven stocks.

Musk’s fortune has dropped about $9.1 billion this year, the most among U.S.-based billionaires tracked by Bloomberg’s wealth index.

Meanwhile, Arnault’s net worth rose by almost $47 billion to $161.2 billion as sales of his firm’s luxury goods surge in China and other parts of Asia.