The magnate Elon Musk, considered until now the richest man on the planet, has stopped being listed as a billionaire this Wednesday after his two major companies, SpaceX and Tesla, have corrected their stock market valuations in recent days.
With this setback, Musk's net worth has been temporarily reduced to 970 billion dollars (855.2 billion euros), according to Forbes. Just a few days ago, he had surpassed the trillion-dollar threshold thanks to SpaceX's recent stock market debut, whose market launch raised 85.7 billion dollars (73.855 billion euros) in the largest initial public offering recorded to date.
The businessman's wealth comes mostly from his stakes in SpaceX and Tesla, where he serves as CEO. In the case of SpaceX, Musk controls 38% of the conglomerate specializing in rockets, satellites, and artificial intelligence, while in Tesla he owns about 11% of the capital of the electric vehicle firm.
In its first sessions on the markets, SpaceX reached a capitalization of over 2.8 trillion dollars (2.45 trillion euros), after accumulating a rise of almost 60%. This placed it as the fourth most valuable company in the world, ahead of giants like Amazon and Microsoft, and only behind Nvidia, Apple, and Alphabet, Google's parent company.
However, SpaceX's stock price has moderated its climb, and this Wednesday the accumulated revaluation is barely around 17%. This correction has relegated the company to sixth place globally by capitalization, although it retains a valuation slightly above 2 trillion dollars (1.7 trillion euros).
Despite this loss of billionaire status, Elon Musk continues to comfortably lead the list of the world's wealthiest individuals. The second-ranked person on the list has a net worth that is less than a third of his. This is the American businessman and former CEO of Google, whose wealth amounts to 287.4 billion dollars (253.125 billion euros).
Third place is occupied by Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, with 265 billion dollars (233.4 billion euros). Next is Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and Musk's rival in the aerospace business, with 247.6 billion dollars (218 billion euros), while in fifth position is Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Technologies, with a net worth of 235.7 billion dollars (207.5 billion euros).