Elon Musk’s Net Worth Jumps $11 Billion in 48 Hours

Since the markets recovered from the turmoil they witnessed in 2022, Elon Musk's net worth has jumped since the beginning of 2023, along with the fortunes of most of the 500 richest billionaires in the world.

A Bloomberg report revealed that while Elon Musk was testifying for the second day in the Federal Court in San Francisco about a tweet he posted on “Twitter” in 2018 regarding the conversion of “Tesla” that manufactures electric cars into a private ownership company, his wealth was increasing at the fastest pace in more than two months.

Musk's fortune has jumped by about $10.6 billion to reach $145.2 billion since he began testifying on Friday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, marking the largest increase in two days since November 2022.

Musk, 51, is facing a lawsuit related to securities fraud because of a tweet he published in August 2018, in which he said that he was considering converting “Tesla” to a private company and delisting it, and buying the stock for $ 420, and that “funding is available and guaranteed.”

Investors say his claims that he had the money to take the electric car maker private were lies that led them to suffer big losses before abandoning the plan.

Musk confirmed that there is no causal relationship between his tweets and the movement of the share price (Tesla shares rose 13.3% on the day he posted the tweet regarding its transfer to a private company).

It is not clear what the federal jury trial will result in. Musk told Saudi investors in 2018 that he didn't own enough Tesla stock to turn it into a private company himself, according to a transcript of the conversation that was disclosed in court papers on Monday.

Musk confirmed that the Saudi Public Investment Fund “categorically wanted to take Tesla private,” claiming that Yasser Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi sovereign fund, had reversed his position.

At the time, Musk said he owned about 19% of Tesla, possibly 25% if he exercised some options, according to a transcript of the conversation. He currently owns about 13%, after selling about $40 billion worth of shares since late 2021 to pay taxes and help finance the Twitter acquisition.

The billionaire also insisted that only shares of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. would have secured the financing needed to take Tesla private.

SpaceX has become an increasingly important part of his fortune, with his 42% stake in it worth about $49 billion, according to the Bloomberg Wealth Index.

Asked about the origin of his $420 share price offer, Musk, who bought Twitter for $54.20 a share, said it was "no joke."

But "there's a kind of karma in making an offer of $420 a share," Musk said. There is "the question of whether this consequence is good or bad at that point". Last month, Musk became the first person to lose $200 billion in his net worth. Today his fortune is down to about $195 billion from its peak.

Tesla stock fell from its peak in 2021, when its price reached $407, to reach $123 at the end of 2022, meaning it lost about 70% of its value. This is considered one of the most important reasons for the decline of Elon Musk's wealth, but it remains book losses.