In early April this year, Tesla CEO musk topped the Forbes Global billionaire list. At that time, who could have thought that he would become the richest person with the heaviest losses this year under the impact of the continuous sharp decline in US stocks. According to the Bloomberg billionaire index, Musk's personal net worth was $216 billion as of Wednesday's close on May 11, evaporating $15.6 billion in a day.
This scale exceeds the total one-day loss of nine other rich people other than musk, who ranks in the top 12 of the rich index, and is 4.4 times the one-day asset loss of Amazon founder Bezos, who ranks second only to musk.
The following screenshot of Bloomberg billionaire index shows that among the top 12 billionaires, Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, the parent company of LV, and Carlos Slim, Mexico's richest man, increased their personal wealth on Wednesday. Bezos and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who ranked fourth, lost $3.53 billion and $1.02 billion a day, respectively. However, Musk's current wealth far exceeds that of other rich people, 67% higher than Bezos's net worth.
Tesla fell 15% in three days, and musk lost tens of billions of dollars on average in two days
As we all know, Musk's personal wealth mainly comes from holding Tesla. Two weeks ago, musk sold more than 9.6 million Tesla shares within three days after the twitter board accepted its acquisition. After the completion of the selling package, which is regarded as financing the acquisition, musk held about 163 million Tesla shares, accounting for nearly 16% of the total shares of the company.
Musk said at the time that there were no plans to sell Tesla shares further. Estimated by holding 163 million shares, Tesla closed down 8.25% on Wednesday, and Musk's Tesla stock market value fell by about $10.75 billion. This is Musk's Tesla position, which evaporated tens of billions of dollars on the second day of this week.
On Monday, Tesla closed down 9.07%, and Musk's market value of positions shrank by about $12.8 billion a day. On Tuesday, as Tesla closed up 1.64%, its position "returned blood" of $2.1 billion a day. As of Wednesday's closing, Tesla's share price had fallen 15.2% in three days, and Musk's position had shrunk by more than $21.4 billion in three days.
U.S. stocks plummeted, musk will "bleed"
Tesla's share price has fallen nearly 30% since Forbes announced musk became the world's richest man in early April. In other words, only in terms of Tesla positions, Musk's personal wealth will shrink by 30%. Since the beginning of this year, Tesla's share price has fallen by about 40%, and the Bloomberg billionaire index shows that Musk's assets have evaporated $54.1 billion this year. By this estimate, Musk's assets have decreased by nearly $40 billion in just one month.
But until this Thursday, the decline of US stocks has not ended. Tesla fell more than 7% when it refreshed its daily low on Thursday. Since then, the decline narrowed to less than 3%. The cumulative decline on Thursday has exceeded that of last week, which fell more than 15% on five days.
Moreover, Wall Street is increasingly bearish on US stocks. If the downward trend has not been reversed, Musk's assets are bound to shrink significantly.
Goldman Sachs has lowered the year-end target of the S & P 500 index twice this year. The agency's current estimate for the S & P 500 index is 4700 points, which means that the return of US stocks in 2022 is slightly negative, but 14% higher than the current level. The report said that if the recession is avoided, the index is still likely to rise, but the economic contraction may reduce the S & P 500 to 3600.
Bank of America strategists did not cut their forecasts for the S & P 500 index in last week's customer report, but said the market would continue to decline. According to Bank of America, the S & P 500 index recorded its worst four months since 1939, and the selling tide in the global market will continue.
On Tuesday, Peter Oppenheimer, chief global equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, said that investors had digested many negative emotions, including concerns about inflation and growth, tightening of central bank policies and the conflict in Ukraine, suggesting that buying opportunities were created for the stock market after the crash. But on Wednesday, Michael Wilson, chief U.S. stock strategist at Morgan Stanley, said that the sharp decline in U.S. stocks has not ended. With the intensification of concerns about economic growth slowdown, he believes that there is still room for further correction in U.S. and European stock markets.
Wilson still believes that US stocks do not reflect the expectation that economic growth will slow down compared with the current level. It is expected that the S & P 500 index will fall in the near future and then climb to 3900 points next spring, about 2.5% lower than the current level.