He has a reputation as a visionary entrepreneur and a brilliant autodidact. His fans adore him, his opponents completely reject him. Elon Musk, 52, master of world-famous companies such as Tesla, the space company Space X and the social network X (formerly Twitter), likes to polarize. He usually doesn’t care about public criticism of him or his companies. But now things are no longer going so well, you could even say: bad. It’s not just the Twitter successor X, which Musk bought for a lot of money, that is a problem. The entrepreneur has also had a bad week in other ways. What’s going on there?
A few days ago, Tesla, Musk’s electric car pioneer from California, published poor quarterly figures. A dramatic demand problem emerged. Tesla vehicles are no longer selling well, the competition from China, especially the manufacturer BYD (stands for “Build Your Dreams”), is more successful. For the first time in almost four years, Tesla deliveries fell by 8.5 percent. Investors and analysts are worried. The value of Tesla shares has been on the decline for a long time; this year it has already fallen by around a third.
This has an impact on Musk’s wealth. Over the weekend it was announced that Musk was in the agency’s billionaire index Bloomberg fell back to fourth place. For the first time since 2020, Mark Zuckerberg, 39, the master of Meta, Facebook and Instagram, passed again in third place. The two entrepreneurs with not exactly small egos are considered big rivals.
According to the figures, Musk’s fortune has shrunk by $48.4 billion. Zuckerberg’s fortune, however, has grown by $58.9 billion. Now Musk decrees loudly Bloomberg a net worth of $180.6 billion; for Zuckerberg it is 186.9 billion dollars. At the forefront is still the Frenchman Bernard Arnault, head of the luxury group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. He is the richest man in the world with $223.4 billion, followed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with $207.3 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg is the founder and head of the Facebook group Meta.
(Photo: Andrej Sokolow/dpa)
Does Elon Musk even feel this? Are such changes still significant in these dimensions? They are at least a matter of honor. In November 2021, Musk’s fortune was still $200 billion larger than Zuckerberg’s.
Tesla announced a change in strategy at least over the weekend, also to increase the share price again. The plan to build a low-cost electric car for the mass market has reportedly been canceled, reported Reuters. Musk has repeatedly stated for years that Tesla wants to build affordable electric cars for the masses. His first “master plan” from 2006 called for first producing luxury models and then using the profits to finance an “inexpensive family car”. The currently cheapest Tesla model, the Model 3 sedan, costs around $40,000 in the USA.
Tesla boss Elon Musk’s instructions are now apparently to rely entirely on robotaxis. It will be presented on August 8th, the company boss announced on X at the weekend. There were initially no further details. According to previous information, the vehicle, which will be completely autonomous without a driver, will be based on a new technical platform that will make production more efficient and cost-effective. Musk has been promising for years that Teslas will drive autonomously. This should radically change the value of the vehicles and the business model.
The question is whether it can work so quickly and become a success. There is a lot at stake for Elon Musk – not just the question of whether he can overtake rival Zuckerberg again.