Elon Musk Just Lost Hundreds of Billions in Weeks — and the Real Reason May Shock Investors

Elon Musk’s personal fortune has taken a historic hit, with reports indicating that roughly $650 billion to $700 billion in paper wealth vanished over a five-week stretch.

Six weeks earlier, after SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO, Musk briefly stood as the richest person in recorded history. On June 16, SpaceX’s market value hit $2.64 trillion, pushing his net worth on paper to about $1.45 trillion. By the close of trading on July 23, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index put his holdings at roughly $738 billion.

SpaceX shares drove much of the drop. After surging past the IPO price and topping $2.6 trillion in valuation, the stock fell 41.4 percent from its June 16 peak of $201.80 to $118.24 by July 23. The company’s market capitalization sank to $895.24 billion, wiping out more than $1 trillion in value.

A delayed Starship launch on July 16, fading post-IPO enthusiasm, and a broader market rethink of AI-linked valuations all weighed on the stock. By July 21, SpaceX had traded below its IPO price after seven straight down sessions. Retail traders noted short sellers booked an estimated $15.5 billion in profits during the slide.

Tesla delivered the second blow. The company posted second-quarter revenue of $28.24 billion — beating estimates — and record deliveries of 480,126 vehicles. Yet non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.33, missing the $0.5367 consensus by 38.5 percent.

Operating expenses jumped 47 percent year-over-year to $4.35 billion as Tesla poured money into AI, robotaxi development, the Optimus robot, and Dojo computing. Tesla shares closed at $319.69 on July 23, down 14.5 percent that day and 28.9 percent year-to-date.

Despite the enormous paper losses, Musk remains the world’s wealthiest individual by a wide margin — still roughly $500 billion ahead of the next-richest person.