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Elon Musk, at three hundred and
thirty billion dollars, was the richest man

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in the world. But then Tesla's
stock has plummeted more than sixty five percent

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since the start of twenty twenty two. He's no longer the world's richest man,

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and his ev company is on track
for having its worst year in the

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stock's history. By the end of
twenty twenty two, Musk lost more than

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half his net worth. On paper, on any given day, he could

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be the world's richest man, or
he could be the world's second richest man.

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Or you know, he might fall
because the share value of Tesla falls.

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Most of Musk's wealth is tied up
in shares of his businesses. That

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means volatility in his company's stock and
valuations can directly sway his net worth.

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In the last few months, Musk
has recovered some lost ground. His net

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worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire
Index, is now estimated at about one

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hundred and sixty billion dollars, but
the trajectory of his key businesses has some

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investors concerned. Here's how a volatile
stretch for some of his companies is impacting

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Musk's net worth. Elon Musk's wealth
really balloon during the pandemic, but in

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the past year so we've seen it
go on a kind of a wild roller

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coaster. The Wall Street Journal reached
out to Elon Musk for common but he

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did not respond. Since he took
over Twitter roughly six months ago, there's

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been lots of questions about his overall
management style and wondering if perhaps some of

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the magic has been rubbed off.
Musk is a serial entrepreneur. He made

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twenty two million dollars selling his first
startup in nineteen ninety nine, an internet

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business called zip two, then bent
most of that money on a startup PayPal.

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When eBay bought PayPal, he made
one hundred and sixty five million dollars

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and used that to found SpaceX and
become an early investor in Tesla. He

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bought Twitter in October twenty twenty two
for forty four billion dollars, funding some

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of the purchase by selling thirty nine
billion dollars worth of his test last shares.

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It's been a rocky a few months
since its takeover. Twitter has never

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been a company that's made a lot
of money, oftentimes being unprofitable on an

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annual basis. But he takes control
and immediately he says he needed to start

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making dramatic changes. Soon after the
purchase, Musk fired top executives, laid

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off thousands of employees, and said
advertisers cutting ad spending had led to a

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massive drop in revenue. He thinks, he's, in essence rights sized the

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ship, but now it's a private
company, so we don't know exactly what's

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going on in there. Musk's ambitions
for Twitter are a mix of content,

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communication, and commerce, similar to
popular Chinese social media platform we Chat.

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All this, Musk says, will
help turn Twitter into a company worth two

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hundred and fifty billion dollars. But
for now, Twitter is valued around twenty

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billion, and I remember, twenty
billion dollars is dramatically less than what he

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acquired the company for the deal that
was around forty four billion dollars. So

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just imagine his wealth going like this, and it's just been a wild ride

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to watch Elon. Musk's main source
of wealth is Tesla. As of late

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April twenty twenty three, Tesla was
worth about five hundred billion dollars and Musk

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owns about thirteen percent of a company. Tesla grew significantly in twenty twenty up

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to a peak value of one point
two trillion dollars in twenty twenty one,

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but it fell significantly last year,
down to a round three hundred and ninety

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billion, and all that fluctuation has
affected Musk's personal wealth. While Tesla's stock

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has rebounded slightly in twenty twenty three, investors have a few concerns the amount

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of time Musk spends focused on Twitter
and Tesla's price cuts that have reduced profit

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margins on each car itselfs well,
Tesla is profitable and it's projecting a dramatic

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growth into the future. The question
is how dramatic and how profitable. Musk

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also envisions a future where Tesla's continue
making money for the company after someone initially

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purchases the car, for example,
charging for software updates, and that's a

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big bets in a lot of ways, an industry upending business model. Tesla

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has not yet shown the ability to
deploy fully autonomous vehicle technology, and so

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he's essentially telling the world this is
coming and we're going to make a lot

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of money down the road. In
Wall Street's not so sure about that.

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And then there's SpaceX. Musk founded
the company in two thousand and two with

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money he got from selling his stake
in PayPal, and while SpaceX doesn't release

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financials, last year, the company
was valued at a round one hundred and

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forty billion dollars. As of twenty
twenty two, a trust associated with Elon

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Musk owned forty two percent of the
company. SpaceX executives recently said it's making

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money off of its Falcon nine rockets
and Dragon spacecraft, and executives expect Starlink

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SpaceX division that provides high speed broadband
internet with satellites, to begin making money

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this year too. Tesla is where
the bulk of his wealth is at this

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point, but SpaceX is increasingly looking
like it's going to be a juggernaut onto

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its own and might be where the
next kind of tranche of huge valuation comes

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from. Musk also owns three other
companies, Neuralink, Boring Company, and

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x Ai. They're all privately held
and their finances are unclear the other early

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stages, you know, the bulk
of elong Musk's time at this point is

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in three places, Tesla, SpaceX, and now Twitter. These other startups

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are of interest to him, but
he would even say that they are far

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down on the list of priorities in
any given day. Musk's wealth has traditionally

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been tied up in his businesses,
and he's been labeled as a cash poor

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billionaire because he has to borrow against
his shares for living expenses. One of

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the things about Elon is he's become
richer and richer is that it gives him

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the whereworthal and the ability to chase
these kind of big ideas that he has,

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whether it's trying to make a humanity
a multiplanetary species, or make electric

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cars cool, or by that shiny
object that he now has, which is

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Twitter. A stumble now could kind
of change his legacy, could perhaps overshadow

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his past accomplishments. Yet he's still
showing a huge appetite for risk.