Elon Musk has reclaimed his place as the <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/2023/01/16/what-is-elon-musks-net-worth-after-his-record-breaking-wealth-loss/" target="_blank">world's richest person</a> after a rollercoaster 2022 that <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/2022/11/22/elon-musks-losses-top-100bn-this-year/" target="_blank">resulted in his wealth plummeting</a> amid a sell-off of technology stocks and numerous controversies related to his <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/2022/10/28/elon-musk-net-worth-twitter/" target="_blank">$44 billion acquisition of Twitter</a>. Mr Musk, <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/2023/02/15/elon-musk-donated-tesla-shares-worth-195bn-to-charity-in-2022/" target="_blank">co-founder of Tesla</a> and also the owner of SpaceX, was worth $187 billion when markets closed on Monday, nudging aside Bernard Arnault, <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/uk-news/2023/01/13/lvmh-its-a-family-affair-for-bernard-arnault/" target="_blank">chairman of French luxury group LVMH</a>, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The centibillionaire, 51, has added $50.1 billion, or 36.6 per cent, to his personal fortune since the beginning of the year. Mr Arnault now has a net worth of $185 billion. So far this year, he has added $23.3 billion to his fortune. The majority of Mr Musk’s fortune is tied to <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/2023/01/17/is-tesla-the-ultimate-meme-stock-and-will-it-ever-recover/" target="_blank">Tesla stock</a>, which has jumped 92.07<b> </b>per cent this year to trade at $207.63 on Monday. However, the stock is still down by nearly half its value compared with January 2022, when it was trading at $399.93. In January, Mr Musk broke the world record for the <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/2023/01/03/elon-musk-loses-biggest-fortune-in-history/">biggest wealth loss in history </a>after shedding $182 billion from his net worth since November 2021, according to a report by Guinness World Records. In 2022 alone, the father of 10 shed a whopping $138 billion from his net worth — almost equivalent to the gross domestic product of Hungary — resulting in Mr Musk losing his world’s richest crown for the first time in 14 months on December 12. Mr Musk started 2023 with a net worth of $138 billion, a sharp drop from the peak of his wealth of $320 billion in 2021, Forbes magazine data shows. He made his first millions in the 1990s, when he sold his first company, Zip2, for more than $300m. He then launched X.com, an online payment system that eventually became PayPal, which he sold to eBay for $1.5bn in 2002. Meanwhile, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos remains in third place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $117 billion. Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the world's fourth-richest person with a personal fortune of $114 billion and Warren Buffett remains in fifth place with a net worth of $106 billion. Until January, embattled Indian tycoon Gautam Adani held the third-place spot. However, he has fallen to 32nd place as the market value of the Adani group of companies continues to plummet following a <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/2023/01/25/adani-shares-drop-after-hindenburg-report-accuses-indian-conglomerate-of-fraud/">scathing report by US short-seller Hindenburg Research</a>. Mr Adani now has a net worth of $37.7 billion.
