Billionaire Elon Musk lost his title as the richest person in the United States or US on Friday, the morning after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos surpassed him. Photo/Doc
JAKARTA – Billionaire Elon Musk lost his title as richest man in the United States or US on Friday, the morning after the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos beyond it. It marked the second time in a week that the two billionaires traded places for the title of richest person in the US.
Forbes estimates that Musk’s assets are worth USD 195.2 billion or the equivalent of IDR 3,022 trillion (exchange rate of IDR 15,481 per USD), while Bezos is projected to have wealth reaching USD 196.1 billion (IDR 3,035 trillion). In the position on Friday morning, it was observed that Bezos’ assets were USD 900 million superior to Musk’s.
An hour later Musk narrowed the gap with Bezos still leading with assets greater than USD200 million, based on the real time Forbes billionaire list. On the other hand, the richest person on Earth remains LVMH’s Bernard Arnault, with assets of USD32.5 billion.
Musk’s fall in the race for the title of richest person occurred when shares of electric car manufacturer Tesla fell 12% in the last five days and peaked at 1.5% at the end of last week. In comparison, Amazon shares tended to be flat this week and jumped 0.35% on Friday.
Last Friday was the second time since August 19 2021, Musk was knocked out of the top two in Forbes’ real-time billionaire rankings.
For information on Thursday, the market capitalization of Novo Nordisk — which produces the weight loss drug Ozempic — jumped to around USD 610 billion, making it worth more than Musk’s Tesla with its market capitalization down to around USD 560 billion.
Novo Nordisk’s market capitalization rose after people who participated in a trial for an experimental weight loss pill lost 13% of their body weight in just 12 weeks.
Tesla shares are known to be volatile throughout 2024. On Tuesday, Tesla shares fell 4% to their lowest price since May after a Morgan Stanley analyst lowered his share price target, citing weaker demand for electric vehicles, as reported by Reuters.
Tesla fell from the top 10 largest US companies by market capitalization this week – something that hasn’t happened since January 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported – and remained in 11th place on Friday.
