Elon Musk has broken the Guinness World Record for largest loss of personal fortune in history.
The business magnate (and still exceedingly wealthy man) reportedly lost approximately $182 billion since November 2021, as estimated by Forbes.
Much of Musk's fortune is tied up in Tesla stock, the value of which dropped 65% following his October purchase of social media platform Twitter. Ahead of the 2022 acquisition, Musk sold nearly $7 billion of his Tesla shares.
And while it's unclear exactly how much Musk lost (some sources suggest up to $200 billion), Guinness is sure the three-figure number far surpasses its previous record of $58.6 billion, set by Japanese tech investor Masayoshi Son during the 2000 dot-com crash.
More than just money, Musk also squandered his status as the world's richest person—an honor now held by 73-year-old Bernard Arnault, founder of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy), whose estimated net worth comes in at a cool $205.5 billion, based on Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires rankings.
Musk, 51, and his $146.8 billion fortune now sits at number two, just ahead of Gautam Adani ($127.9 billion), Jeff Bezos ($118.5 billion), and Warren Buffett ($110.8 billion).
"As Elon Musk continues to build his own tech conglomerate, we won't be surprised to see him bounce back […] at some point in the future," the Guinness World Records said, citing Masayoshi Son's almost-immediate turnaround from conglomerate zero to hero.