In the first three months of 2024, no billionaire on the planet has seen a larger drop in net worth than Elon Musk. Elon's net worth has dropped roughly $49 billion from where it stood on December 31, 2023. On the other side of that coin, no billionaire on the planet has seen a larger gain in net worth than Mark Zuckerberg. Mark's net worth has increased $59 billion from where it stood at the end of 2023.
Mark started the year with a net worth of $131 billion. Elon started the year with a net worth of $229 billion. Mark was the sixth richest person in the world when he rang in the new year. Elon was #1.
As I type this article, Zuckerberg is worth $187 billion. Elon is worth $180 billion.
Today, Musk and Zuck's diverging net worths allowed Mark Zuckerberg to become the world's third richest person. In the process, he just drop-kicked Elon to #4. Elon's rank on the list of the world's richest people has not been this low since August 2020, when he first became the fourth richest person in the world. Amazingly, back in August 2020, all it took was $85 billion to be the world's fourth richest person. Today, that net worth would rank you roughly #17.
Back in 2020, when Elon reached #4, the three people ahead of him were:
- Mark Zuckerberg with $100 billion
- Bill Gates with $120 billion
- Jeff Bezos with $190 billion
One year and two months after Elon hit #4 with a net worth of $85 billion, his fortune briefly topped $340 billion. Not only did that make him BY FAR the richest person in the world, it also made him the richest human being of all time, topping John D. Rockefeller's 80+ year inflation-adjusted previous record.
So maybe we should count Elon down, but certainly not out… just yet.
(Photo by MANDEL NGAN, ALAIN JOCARD/AFP via Getty Images)
