The title of richest person on the planet has already changed hands once in 2023, but it seems Tesla CEO Elon Musk is not one to be kept down and has already reclaimed the No.1 spot.
The Twitter boss made headlines in January for breaking the Guinness World Record for losing the most wealth ever, at an estimated $182 billion since November 2021.
For a little over a month, the baton was passed to the $190 billion luxury kingpin Bernard Arnault, the founder of luxury goods multinational LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy).
But after Tesla stock continued its stunning rally into this week, Bloomberg has confirmed Musk once again sits at the summit of its real-time Billionaire's Index.
What is Musk's net worth now?
When markets closed on Monday, Musk’s net worth was some $187.1 billion, pipping Arnault's $185.3 billion fortune.
According to reports from Barron's, the SpaceX co-founder owns around 424 million shares of Tesla, excluding his management stock options.
Musk's wealth has therefore ballooned in line with the uptick in the EV maker's share price which had shot up by nearly 100% as of the close of play on February 27 when compared to its low in early January.
In January Tesla's shares rebounded by more than 50% with Fortune outlining a raft of reasons for investors' renewed confidence in the business. These ranged from fears over profitability waining and leadership at the company reinforcing longer-term growth promises outlined as far back as 2020.
Likewise, investors have had their confidence buoyed by a surprisingly resilient U.S. economy with forecasters now pushing back their estimates on when a recession might hit. Not everyone is so confident that there will be a "softer" landing, however, with staunch Wall Street bear Mike Wilson predicting stocks are in the "death zone".
Why did Tesla stock fall so much?
Musk himself is likely to be among the reasons why many investors backed away from the brand, with stakeholders claiming he had become distracted with his October 2022 purchase of Twitter.
Musk continually offloaded Tesla shares in order to bankroll his new project as well as saying he "wouldn't wish the pain" of balancing Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter on "anyone".
Although none of his headline companies are without their challenges, Tesla is facing down a battle for the Chinese market.
Musk has admitted a Chinese company is likely to pose the most competition, saying: “We have a lot of respect for the car companies in China. They are the most competitive in the world in our experience, and the Chinese market is the most competitive. They work the hardest and they work the smartest, and we have a lot of respect for the Chinese companies that we are competing against.”
Sales of Tesla automobiles have also begun to slow with the brand slashing prices in a bid to revive some demand for the product.
The result was fury from owners because they had recently paid the previous higher price or because they will now get less for their used Tesla.
