Elon Musk lost R303 billion in one day

Elon Musk, who owns Tesla, SpaceX, X, Boring Company, Neuralink, and xAI, has lost R303 billion after the Tesla share price tanked.

Musk is the world’s richest man. According to Forbes’ real-time billionaires list, his net wealth is $320 billion (R5.8 trillion).

He is the world’s most successful entrepreneur who co-founded many of the most innovative companies, including electric car maker Tesla and rocket producer SpaceX.

He is also behind artificial intelligence startup xAI, The Boring Company, a tunnelling company, and co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company.

Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022. It was one of his less profitable deals, as the social media platform lost much of its enterprise value.

He is also part of the Paypal Mafia, a name given to an influential group of former Paypal executives who went on to great entrepreneurial endeavours.

The Paypal Mafia rose to prominence recently, with many of its members becoming heavily involved in developing generative artificial intelligence and US politics.

The PayPal Mafia includes three South Africans who played a significant role in its formation and growth under the so-called ‘Don’ of the mafia, Peter Thiel.

The three South Africans – Elon Musk, Roelof Botha, and David Sacks – share a common background, all coming from the tip of Africa.

Thiel also spent some time in the country before becoming a renowned tech investor. Most of his few years in Africa were spent in modern-day Namibia at a school in Swakopmund.

Musk made headlines in South Africa following the United States’ actions against the country in recent weeks.

Musk recently said that although he grew up as an English South African, he considers himself “simply an American”.

Despite considering himself American, he has strong ties to the country and continues to comment on what is happening in South Africa.

“What’s happening in South Africa is deeply wrong. It is not what Nelson Mandela intended at all,” he said.

He pointed to race-based laws, like black economic empowerment (BEE) and affirmative action, which discriminate against a minority group.

He added that his satellite Internet service, Starlink, could not operate in South Africa because he was not black.

South Africa’s empowerment laws require telecommunications companies operating in the country to be 30% owned by previously disadvantaged groups.

This prevents Starlink, which offers affordable Internet access to rural communities, from launching in South Africa.

Elon Musk lost R303 billion in a day

Yesterday, Elon Musk experienced one of his worst days in terms of wealth lost after the Tesla share price plummeted by over 15%.

Musk owns 410.8 million Tesla shares, which represents 12.8% of the total outstanding shares of the car company.

When the market opened on Monday, Tesla had a market cap of around $845 billion (R15.4 trillion), and its share price stood at $262.67.

At the share price of $262.67, Musk’s shareholding in Tesla was valued at $108 billion (around R2 trillion).

The Tesla share price declined by over 15% on Monday, bringing Tesla’s market cap down to $715 billion (around R13 trillion).

The share price crash saw the value of Elon Musk’s shareholding in Tesla declining to $91.3 billion (R1.7 trillion).

This means that Musk lost $16.6 billion on Monday due to the Tesla crash, equivalent to R304 billion.

To put this in perspective, Musk lost more money in a single day than the entire value of Vodacom (R244 billion) or MTN (R213 billion).

This loss exceeded the market cap of most of South Africa’s most prominent companies, including Sanlam, Absa, Shoprite, Nedbank, and Discovery.

Put differently, Musk lost more money in a day than what South Africa’s richest man, Johann Rupert, is worth.