Elon Musk Loses the Title of World’s Richest Person: Gets Dethroned by Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder

Written by: Supriya Kadu

Edited by: Pinky Deshmukh

Last Updated: March 05, 2024

Summary: Jeff Bezos moves ahead in the race of the world’s richest person, dethrones Elon Musk from the title.

Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX has been dethroned from the title of world’s richest person by the founder and former CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos. For nine months Elon Musk has been titled as the richest person in the world, but not anymore. He now moves behind to the second position, just behind Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.

On Monday, Tesla’s shares crashed around 7.2 % adhering to which Elon Musk lost a significant amount of his net worth. Now Jeff Bezos has taken over the title of world’s richest person with a net worth of $200.3 billion, whereas Elon Musk’s net worth stands at $197.7 billion.

The last time Jeff Bezos topped this list of richest persons in the world was in 2021. With Tesla’s share crumpling down, Amazon’s shares are climbing high and high, eliminating the gap between the net worth of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos over the months.

At a time in 2021, the gap between the net worth of both Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos was that of $142 billion. Both Amazon and Tesla being the part of US’s Magnificent Seven Stocks, Amazon’s stocks have been multiplied since 2022, however Tesla’s shares have been plummeting around 50% since 2021.

On monday Tesla’s Shanghai shipments plunged to its lowest in more than a year. Meanwhile, Amazon witnessed a huge increase in its online sales since the beginning of the pandemic. There are chances of Musk getting another blow to his net worth, after the Delaware judge canceled the package of $55 million at Tesla. The ruling took the side of the investor who challenged Musk’s payout scheme, which was the largest in history.

Apart from Musk’s shares in SpaceX and Tesla, the major part of his assets came from the options that were included in the canceled plan. Meanwhile, a major part of Jeff Bezos's net worth comes from his 9% ownership in Amazon. Even after selling his 50 million shares worth $8.5 billion last month, he still is the largest shareholder in Amazon.