Bloomberg reports that Tesla’s owner has lost nearly $50 billion in the last month
© Getty Images / Sean Zanni
The world’s richest person, Elon Musk, has lost over $49 billion since he announced his plans to buy the social network Twitter last month, Bloomberg reports.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk remains at the top of the rich list, but his fortune has shrunk by roughly one fifth since early April, now amounting to $209.9 billion.
On Wednesday, the news outlet claimed this loss was due in part to a drop in Tesla share price, which fell to the lowest level this year, depriving Musk of some $12.3 billion dollars. The outlet clarified that this steep drop in Tesla’s value was due to investor concerns regarding Musk’s plans to finance the purchase of Twitter.
Tesla shares lost 18.5% of their value in May, after shedding 19% in April. They dropped 7% in Wednesday’s trading, but recovered some of the losses on Thursday, trading at $718.5 per share around 15:00 GMT.
Meanwhile, Twitter shares lost 3.8% on Wednesday and continued to slide on Thursday. So far this month, they have fallen by 24.8%, thereby nearly giving back all of last month’s 26.7% gain.
On April 4, Musk revealed he owned a 9.2% stake in Twitter, and, on April 14, proceeded to announce that he was ready to buy the social network for $44 billion, or $54.2 per share. Twitter’s board of directors was originally uninclined to allow Musk the takeover, but, on April 25, the social network announced that the parties had reached an agreement.
However, last week, Musk announced that he had put the purchase on hold, which caused Twitter’s share price to instantly collapse by some 20%. On May 17, the microblogging platform filed a preliminary application with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the sale of the social network to Musk and said that it was committed to completing the deal as soon as possible.
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