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Key Takeaways
- According to Guinness World Records, between 2021 and 2023 Elon Musk suffered the greatest loss of a personal fortune in history.
- His loss, which was on paper and due primarily to a drop in Tesla’s share price, amounted to nearly $200 billion.
- Since that time Musk has recouped his losses and is believed to be the world’s richest man by a considerable margin.
Elon Musk is referred to as “the world’s richest man” so frequently that you might think he trademarked the phrase. But the South Africa-born billionaire also holds another distinction: the largest loss ever of a personal fortune. From late 2021 to early 2023, Musk’s net worth fell from $320 billion to $138 billion, netting a loss of $182 billion.
How Much Musk Lost
The dubious honor of “largest loss” was conferred by Guinness World Records, based on a 2023 report by Forbes. It said that Musk’s net worth fell from $320 billion in 2021 to $138 billion in early January 2023, a net loss of $182 billion. The major reason for the plunge was a decline in the share prices of the electric automaker Tesla, probably the best-known of Musk’s portfolio of companies.
The nearly $200 billion slide put Musk far ahead of—or behind, depending on how you look at it—the prior record holder. “Although the exact figure is almost impossible to ascertain, Musk’s total losses far surpass the previous record of $58.6 billion, set by Japanese tech investor Masayoshi Son in 2000,” Guinness World Records noted in a Jan. 6, 2023, press release. Son is the founder and CEO of SoftBank Group.
At the same time, the loss cost Musk another record, that of world’s richest man—at least temporarily.
How Much Elon Musk Is Worth Today
Musk now appears to be a double recordholder. He still holds the prize for the largest loss, and he has, in recent years, regained his spot as the world’s richest man.
Forbes ranks the world’s billionaires in what it calls “real-time,” adjusting the figures daily. As of Sept. 16, 2025, for example, it put Musk’s wealth at $476 billion.
Bloomberg provides a more conservative estimate, pegging his Sept. 16, 2025, net worth at $429 billion. The runner-up is Oracle Corp.’s (ORCL) Larry Ellison, valued at $360 billion. Rounding out the top five are Meta Platforms, Inc.’s (META) Mark Zuckerberg at $269 billion, Amazon.com Inc.’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos at $253 billion, and Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) co-founder Larry Page at $220 billion.
The Bottom Line
Elon Musk holds the prize for “largest loss of personal fortune,” according to Guinness World Records, and he may be in no danger of having to give it back anytime soon. However, his fortunes have improved considerably in the years since, making him the world’s richest individual that we know of—and by far.
