Jeff Bezos regains the title of the world’s richest person with his wealth surpassing Elon Musk

Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos regains the title of the world’s richest person with his wealth surpassing Elon Musk, and Amazon hits a new high

The stock price of Tesla, an electric vehicle manufacturer, plunged 7.16% on Monday, closing at $188.14, which led to a significant reduction in the wealth of CEO Elon Musk. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk’s personal fortune shrank to $197.7 billion， overtaken by Jeff Bezos, the founder of online shopping giant Amazon, whose wealth is $200.3 billion . Bezos has returned to the top of the world’s richest person for the first time since 2021.

Tesla’s stock price drops, and the boss’s wealth decreases

The wealth gap between Musk and Bezos once reached $142 billion. However, the stock price trends of Tesla and Amazon have contrasted, resulting in a continuous narrowing of the gap. Although both Tesla and Amazon are part of the so-called “Big Seven Tech Companies”, Amazon’s stock price has more than doubled since the end of 2022, approaching a record high, while Tesla’s stock price has fallen nearly 50% since its 2021 peak.

So far this year, Tesla’s stock price has fallen by about 24% in total, dragging Musk’s net worth down by about $31 billion. Tesla’s stock price plunged again on Monday because preliminary data showed that the shipment volume of its Shanghai factory had dropped to a more than one-year low. Benefiting from the rise in Amazon’s stock price, Bezos’s net worth has increased by about $23 billion since the beginning of this year.

Most of Bezos’ wealth comes from his 9% stake in Amazon. Despite selling 50 million shares of Amazon worth about $8.5 billion last month, he remains the largest shareholder.

Bezos said last year that he had moved from Seattle to Miami to be closer to his parents and some of Blue Origin, his space exploration company’s businesses. For individuals, Florida does not charge capital gains tax.

It is estimated that by selling his shares after moving to Florida instead of staying in Washington state, Bezos could save as much as $600 million in taxes. This is not the first time that Bezos has taken the title of the world’s richest person. Back in 2017, he surpassed Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, to become the top.

On the other hand, Musk’s net worth may also be further affected. A Delaware judge previously ruled that Tesla’s compensation plan worth up to $55.8 billion given to him was invalid. This plan is described as the largest compensation plan ever given to a CEO of a US-listed company. The rejected compensation plan included stock options, which were one of Musk’s most significant assets. His other significant assets include his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, a space exploration company.

Twitter’s four former executives seek $1 billion in compensation

Musk’s net worth once exceeded $300 billion in 2021. The following year, he spent $44 billion to acquire Twitter, the predecessor of social media X. He also sold some of his Tesla shares that year, partly to finance the acquisition.

This acquisition has brought a lot of trouble to Musk. On Monday, four former Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, filed a lawsuit against Musk, claiming that after Musk took over the social media, he immediately fired them on the grounds of negligence, without paying them a total of more than $128 million in severance pay.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that a consortium led by Morgan Stanley is in discussions with Musk and his team on the refinancing of approximately $12.5 billion in debt, which was used to support Musk’s privatization of X. The two sides discussed options to reduce the cost of the debt and the risk of the banks holding the relevant debt.

As for Bernard Arnault, the richest person in France and the head of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods group, he is ranked third in the world with a net worth of $197.5 billion, not far behind Musk.