Elon Musk’s net worth drops $50bn as SpaceX shares tumble again

Tesla and SpaceX chief executive, Elon Musk, saw his fortune reduced by more than $51bn on Tuesday after shares in the rocket company fell sharply, Forbes has reported.

According to the report, SpaceX’s stock dropped by over six per cent to just above $150 by Tuesday afternoon.

“Shares of SpaceX plunged by more than 6% as of Tuesday afternoon to just over $150, hovering only slightly above its $150 debut price, while Tesla shares dropped by nearly 4%,” Forbes said.

Tesla shares also declined by close to four per cent on the same day.

Forbes explained that the losses at both companies wiped $51.4bn off Musk’s net worth, bringing his total fortune down to $948bn.

Musk holds 4.8 billion shares in SpaceX along with 350 million stock options in the firm, in addition to roughly 700 million shares in Tesla, the outlet stated.

Despite the drop in share price, Forbes noted that some Wall Street banks remained bullish on SpaceX’s long-term prospects, with one analyst describing the company’s potential impact as bigger than that of any company they had previously covered.

SpaceX went public last month in one of the most anticipated stock market debuts in recent history, briefly pushing Musk’s net worth to an all-time high of $1.45tn and making him the world’s first trillionaire.

However, the stock has been highly volatile since listing, with sharp swings wiping hundreds of billions of dollars off Musk’s fortune on more than one occasion, including a selloff in late June linked to a $60bn all-stock acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor, which some analysts criticised as diluting shareholder value.

Musk remains the world’s richest person by a wide margin, ahead of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who rank second and third on rich lists.