Elon Musk is the billionaire who lost the most money in the first half of 2024

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's fortune fell by nearly $30 billion, more than any other billionaire in the world in the first half of the year, according to Forbes.

 

Elon Musk's fortune was $251.3 billion on February 31, 2023, and dropped to $221.4 billion on June 28, the last trading day of the stock market in the first half of 2024. However, he is still the richest person on the planet.

 

Much of the decline stems from a Delaware judge invalidating Musk’s record $51 billion compensation package in January, prompting Forbes to slash the value of the package by 50%, citing uncertainty over whether he would receive it.

 

 

Billionaire Elon Musk in California, USA on April 13. Photo: AFP

 

Forbes did not change its estimate after Tesla shareholders re-approved the package on June 13, because the automaker could face a lengthy appeals process related to the January ruling to successfully complete the payment.

 

Aside from the compensation package, Musk’s fortunes were volatile in the first half of the year. The value of his stake in Tesla fell by about $20 billion as the company’s stock fell 20% as profits and car sales declined. In return, Musk’s stake in artificial intelligence startup xAI rose to $14.4 billion.

 

He also has a stake of about $75 billion in private aerospace company SpaceX, $7 billion in social network X and smaller investments such as brain chip startup Neuralink.

 

Compared to the peak of Tesla CEO's assets of 320 billion USD in November 2021, he has lost about 99 billion USD, according to Forbes .

 

Top 10 billionaires who lost the most money in the first half of 2024

STT Billionaire

Asset reduction

 

(billion USD)

 

1 Elon Musk 29,9

2 Dieter Schwarz 15,4

3 Carlos Slim Helu & family 13,9

4 Zhong Shanshan 11,3

5 Andrew Forrest & family 9,5

6 Francoise Bettencourt Meyers & family 9,4

7 Phil Knight & family 9,2

8 James Ratcliffe 7,5

9 Bernard Arnault & family 6,9

10 Low Tuck Kwong 6,7

The first half of 2024 was generally a good time for the world’s richest people. The combined net worth of the 10 richest people increased from $1.47 trillion at the end of 2023 to $1.66 trillion at the end of June. Musk was just one of the few billionaires whose fortunes declined.

 

The billionaire who made the most money in the first half of the year was Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Thanks to the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI), his assets increased by 64.1 billion USD in the first half of the year, moving his ranking from 27th to 14th.

 

AI also helped a series of technology stocks increase, creating conditions for many American billionaires in this industry to become richer, such as: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (increased by 61.5 billion USD), Dell CEO Michael Dell (increased by 35.8 billion USD), Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison (increased by 37.7 billion USD) and Google Co-founder Larry Page (increased by 33.1 billion USD).

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Elon Musk Praises Jensen Huang
Musk praised Huang for always working with employees to solve problems - a habit formed after washing dishes and scrubbing toilets at a fast-food chain.

In March, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gave an interview at Stanford Graduate School of Business, recounting his experience working at the fast-food chain Denny's.

"For me, no job is too low. I washed dishes, I cleaned toilets. I cleaned a lot of toilets, probably more than all of you combined," he said. Huang said that this experience shaped his work habits - always directly involved in solving problems with employees.

On June 30, when a Bloomberg host reposted this interview video on X, Elon Musk commented: "That's the right attitude. When toilet paper was scarce during the pandemic, I always made sure our factories and offices had enough toilet paper."

Tesla CEO Elon Musk (left) and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Photo: Reuters

Musk is now a client and friend of Huang's. The Tesla CEO has a similar working style.

The billionaire said he used to sleep on the Tesla factory floor to personally inspect cars coming off the production line. "I slept on the floor not because I couldn't go across the street and rent a hotel. It was because I wanted to be worse than everyone else in the company. When they were tired, I wanted to be more tired," he explained to Bloomberg in 2018.

Analysts say Musk’s praise of Huang goes beyond the fact that they share similar leadership styles. He has not hesitated to take shots at other billionaires who are also known for their crazy work ethic, such as Mark Zuckerberg of Meta or investor Mark Cuban of Shark Tank.

The reason may be that the two fortunes are now closely linked. Musk's ambitions in artificial intelligence now need Nvidia's AI chips.

Musk and Huang have also expressed admiration for each other. "Tesla is so far ahead in self-driving cars. One day, every car will have it," Huang said in an interview with Yahoo Finance in May. Musk later responded on X: "Thanks Jensen."