World’s richest man Elon Musk, who is also US President Donald Trump’s chief of cost-cutting, suffered a major loss as the shares of his multinational car company Tesla tossed and turned and made a huge dent in his net worth as the stock market is trembling under the Trump administration’s tariffs over China, Mexico, and Canada. China is the second-largest market for Tesla electric vehicles.
Vaibhav Taneja, the chief financial officer of Tesla, had cautioned in January about Tesla’s dependcy on imports from Canada to produce its cars.
“Tariffs will have an impact on our business and profitability considering Tesla is still very reliant on parts from across the world for all our businesses, Tesla’s chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja had said in January.
Elon Musk has lost about $90 billion while his outstanding liabilities stand at $23.2 billion, according to Bloomberg reports.
Tesla’s shares continue to decline, indicating potential difficulties ahead as the company experienced its poorest weekly performance since October, with an 11% decrease due to underwhelming global sales figures and fourth-quarter revenue below market expectations.
“When a company’s valuation has defied traditional measures for so long, finding a floor depends more on investor mood than typical value metrics,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, as reported by Bloomberg regarding the fall in the prices of Tesla’s shares.
Elon Musk owned Tesla is America’s leading electric vehicle manufacturer and has been facing deteriorating overall sales due to reduced US consumer demand.
He was ranked the world’s wealthiest person in January 2021 and has retained this position even after losing this amount. He had achieved a peak of $486 billion.
Right now, Musk has a fortune of $351 billion even as during January and February 2025, he witnessed a fall of $81 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
As of March 2, 2025, Musk’s primary wealth source is SpaceX holdings and he controls nearly 42% of the company through a trust arrangement. Talking about social media platform X, Musk has an ownership of 79%.
Musk had bought X, then Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022. Currently his stakes in X Corp are about $8.06 billion and he also holds interests in xAI, The Boring Company, and Neuralink.
Meanwhile, according to Forbes’ real-time estimates, Musk’s net worth fell by $8.8 billion on Thursday, March 6, to $342.8 billion.
The Tesla slump came as the S&P 500 fell 1.8% to a 2025 low as Trump’s tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico ate into investor sentiment.
Elon Musk remains the richest person in the world followed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
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