Elon Musk's personal worth shrinks by $100 billion, yet more than Jeff Bezos'

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has seen $100 billion of his fortune wiped off in less than a year. Even after such a sharp decline, he remains the richest person on the planet, Forbes reported.

It was November of 2021 when Elon Musk rode the wave of his electric vehicle (EV) company's rising stock price to cross the $300 billion milestone of personal wealth, and become the first person ever to do so. Even Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, with his plethora of products and services offered across the globe, hasn't managed this feat.

However, before November 2022 dawns, Musk has already lost $100 billion of this newfound fortune, which stands at $210 billion at the time of this writing, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Musk's moves hurt investor confidence

Since the beginning of this year, Musk secretly began buying the stock of the social media company Twitter and later announced his intent to buy out the company completely through a single offer.

The Twitter board accepted the offer, which offered a premium of the company's then-stock price. Musk's plans to finance the deal using money raised by offloading Tesla stock led to investors questioning where his focus would lie once the company was acquired.

A prolific user of Twitter, Musk has publicly announced multiple ways to improve Twitter's user experience and bottom line. However, many worried that the "Technoking of Tesla," as Musk renamed himself, was spreading himself too thin, especially when considering he also has a space company, a neuro-biotechnology company, and a tunneling company to look after.

These questions, along with the risk of a recession that Musk has frequently spoken about, began the slide of the Tesla stock price, which has halved since its $407 peak last year and now stands at $222 at the time of writing. Musk, who owns at least 15 percent of the company's shares, has seen his personal worth slide down by a third to $210 billion.

Not just Musk, other billionaires have also seen their fortunes slide collectively, losing as much as $50 billion in a single day. Musk, however, still retains a $66 billion buffer, as does Bezos who remains at #2 on the list with a $144 billion fortune.

What can $100 billion buy?

Before Musk lost it, there were quite a few things he could have bought with $100 billion. First and foremost would be two Twitters. Even when calculated at his offered premium price that would have saved him a lot of his grace and public face, as the social media company's lawyers would not have dragged him to court.

Musk could have been merrily making the many tweaks he intended, but never fully disclosed, to unlock the "true potential" of the social media platform that Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, never really managed to do.

If Musk was interested in tapping into the social media market he could have also splurged on Instagram, a much more popular online destination today than Twitter, and, by some estimates, currently worth $100 billion or more. The only problem is that he would have to pry it out of Mark Zuckerberg's hands, who himself is hanging by a thread in the metaverse.

In case Musk felt like dipping his toes into the payments sector again, there could be Stripe on offer, also valued around the same price tag. Although we doubt Musk would feel philanthropic, there is also the $100 billion bill of climate finance that was extensively discussed at COP26 last year – Musk could have snapped up the title of "World Saver" by loosening some purse strings.

Now, that money has disappeared into thin air and there isn't much Musk can do but hope that he rides the next wave to the $400 billion or perhaps even the $500 billion mark.