Elon Musk Holds the Report for Largest Private Fortune Misplaced. Here is How A lot Is Gone.

Elon Musk is known as “the world’s richest man” so incessantly that you simply would possibly suppose he trademarked the phrase. However the South Africa-born billionaire additionally holds one other distinction: the most important loss ever of a private fortune. From late 2021 to early 2023, Musk’s web value fell from $320 billion to $138 billion, netting a lack of $182 billion.

How A lot Musk Misplaced

The doubtful honor of “largest loss” was conferred by Guinness World Information, primarily based on a 2023 report by Forbes. It stated that Musk’s web value fell from $320 billion in 2021 to $138 billion in early January 2023, a web lack of $182 billion. The key cause for the plunge was a decline in share costs of the electrical automaker Tesla, in all probability one of the best identified of Musk’s portfolio of firms.

The almost $200 billion slide put Musk far forward of—or behind, relying on the way you take a look at it—the prior file holder. “Though the precise determine is sort of not possible to determine, Musk’s whole losses far surpass the earlier file of $58.6 billion, set by Japanese tech investor Masayoshi Son in 2000,” Guinness World Information stated in a Jan. 6, 2023 press launch. Son is the founder and CEO of SoftBank Group.

On the identical time, the loss price Musk one other file, that of world’s richest man—a minimum of quickly. “Musk’s misfortunes additionally noticed him lose his standing because the world’s richest individual to Bernard Arnault (France), founding father of luxurious items conglomerate LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy), who has an estimated web value of $190 billion,” the identical press launch reported.

How A lot Elon Musk Is Price At this time

Musk now seems to be a double recordholder. He should maintain the prize for the most important loss, and he appears to have regained his spot because the world’s richest man.

Forbes, which has established itself as a number one authority on these issues, ranks the world’s billionaires in what it calls “real-time,” adjusting the figures every day. On March 5, 2025, for instance, it put Musk’s wealth at $351.6 billion. Runner-up was Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg at $226.7 billion. Rounding out the highest 5 had been Amazon’s Jeff Bezos at $223.5 billion, Oracle’s Larry Ellison at $199.2 billion, and the aforementioned Bernard Arnault and his household at $180.6 billion.

By the point you learn this, these numbers can have modified, and the order might have shifted barely. However both Musk should lose some huge cash or another billionaire should acquire so much (or some mixture of the 2) to topple him from first place.

The Backside Line

Elon Musk holds the prize for “largest lack of private fortune,” in keeping with Guinness World Information, and he could also be in no hazard of getting to offer it again anytime quickly. Nevertheless, his fortunes have improved significantly within the years since, making him the world’s richest person that we all know of—and by far.