It looks like Elon Musk is going to have to settle for third place as chairman/CEO of Louis Vuitton Bernard Arnault takes over the number 2 spot for the richest man alive. Arnault's then estimated net worth of $161.2 billion beat Musk by just a few million dollars.
Though the affluent entrepreneur's reign at Louis Vuitton has garnished him an immense amount of wealth, the real reason for the change in placement was Musk's plundering Telsa shares. While the electric vehicle company was on the top of the stock market world in January, shares have recently fallen a whopping 24%. Fox Business reports that shares have decreased 18.55% month-to-date, while dropping 18.11% year-to-date.
This drop is presumed to be partially attributed to controversy surrounding public relations in China, as safety concerns emerge from Chinese consumers.
"Taking a step back, Tesla is clearly facing chip shortage issues which is putting more pressure on production and logistics to fulfill demand globally," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives tells Market Insider, "and speaks to more cars heading to Europe this month than the Street expected."
Musk has been having quite the past week days as his Twitter spun the crypto-currency market into chaos last Wednesday. With concerns of the egregious impact mining cryptocurrency bring to the environment on his mind, Musk stated that Telsa will no longer receive Bitcoin as a payment method.
"We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel," Musk tweets.
This caused the price of BitCoin to plummet to $40K. Though, all is not lost for the crypto-currency as Musk indicated that Telsa has not yet sold any of its $1.5 million stake.
While Musk is suffering losses, his contemporary Bernard Arnault continues to make huge gains. The new 2nd wealthiest man alive gained majority of his now $185 billion net worth from his 96.5% stake in Christian Dior - the owner of Louis Vuitton. The luxury goods giant oversees more than 70 brands including Sephora.
Recently, Louis Vuitton acquired one of the most highly renowned jewelry brands, Tiffany & Co, for the price of $15.8 billion. This purchase was marked as the biggest acquisition of luxury brand. His wealth increased $285 million on Monday, making Musk give up his seat at the table of the richest men in the world.
Sources: Fox Business, Market Insider, Republic World