Elon Musk continues to break new records though not always the kind he wants to.
Now the notorious billionaire has set a Guinness World Record for losing the most money ever.
Musk, who is CEO of both Tesla and Twitter, had a tough year in 2022 and his fortune dwindled by a massive $182 billion or 153 billion euros since November 2021 based on Forbes estimates, according to Guiness World Records.
Musk's losses might be as high as $200 billion according to other sources, the organization said.
Guiness World Records said the South African-born businessman's losses beat the previous record set in 2000 by Masayoshi Son, a Japanese tech investor who runs conglomerate SoftBank Group.
The amount of losses Musk incurred "is almost impossible to ascertain," Guinness said.
But Musk's fortune fell from a high of $320 billion in 2021 to $138 billion as of January 2023 due to the massive losses of Tesla's stock according to Forbes.
Tesla's stock began plummeting even before Musk agreed to acquire Twitter for $44 billion last April. But its decline accelerated as Musk first tried to get out of the agreement, and then gave up and began selling some of his Tesla holdings to help pay for the deal.
Since the transaction closed in late October, Musk has focused much of his attention on the social media company, firing employees, battling its users, imposing bans on journalists critical of him, and attempting to court advertisers scared off because of his controversial moves.
Musk's erratic and polarizing behavior has not been well received as he brought back many Twitter accounts that were previously banned for racist or antisemitic posts or for targeting LGBTQ people.
The CEO also lost his title as the world's richest man according to data compiled by Forbes and Bloomberg.
Other CEOs fared much better in 2022. Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett's fortune fell by only $1.48 billion, a performance that outpaced four tech titans, including current and former CEOs Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison.
The stock market faced a brutal year as tech stocks sank, but Buffett's investments performed better and enabled him to close the gap with Musk.
Musk now ranks as the second richest man.
The massive loss in Musk's net worth occurred as fears of inflation, a weaker economy and the mercurial CEO's distraction from his acquisition of Twitter, have sent Tesla shares tumbling.
The fortune of Microsoft founder Bill Gates fell by $28.9 billion and is valued at $109 billion.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, ended the year with a loss of $85.4 billion while his net worth stands at $107 billion. He is ranked as the sixth richest man by Bloomberg, just behind Buffett.
Tesla's Massive Problems
Tesla investors have expressed their concerns with Musk's recent behavior and apparent absence from the company and many have sold their shares.
Tesla was the most profitably shorted stock in 2022, according to Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners, a New York-based financial data company in a January report.
Tesla stock lost more than 65% of its value to end the year at $123.18 a share. It had started at $352.26. This decline of more than $720 billion of market capitalization resulted in large losses for shareholders.
Tesla's fourth-quarter results are scheduled to be released later in January.
Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities said Musk needs to step down from running Twitter ahead of Tesla's earnings as the company contends with a myriad of macroeconomic headwinds including the impact of a recession on the sales of cars.
"Name a CEO of Twitter by the end of January," he recommended.
Musk's $40 billion of sales of Tesla stock has also impacted the company's market cap.
"Stop selling stock and no more boy that cried wolf or Pinocchio situation," and "formally adopt a 10b5-1 plan so investors know there is no major selling block around the corner," Ives said.
The analyst recommends that Musk to "lay out conservative 2023 delivery and targets given the darker macro. The 50% growth target is not happening in our opinion, with 35%* delivery growth a more hittable and realistic goal for 2023."
The billionaire needs to focus on Tesla instead of Twitter since he is "the heart and lung of Tesla and vice versa," Ives said.
"Announce Cybertruck deliveries will hit the road by the end of 2023. Timing is key here with competition from all angles and worries production woes will push this into 2024," he said. "Lay out the strategic plan for Twitter. Right now very simply the fear is Twitter is bleeding money with advertisers fleeing (for now) which means more losses and therefore more Musk TSLA stock sales. Once a new CEO is in place lay out the 3-year strategy of Twitter and what this can become, Super App, 'X', WeChat 2.0, etc."
The billionaire has not responded to the analyst's advice.
