Elon Musk Loses $350 Billion in One Week as SpaceX Shares Tumble
Elon Musk’s net worth, which stood at $1.4 trillion as of June 16, has fallen by an estimated $350 billion, dropping to around $1.1 trillion on Tuesday, according to Forbes driven by a sharp selloff in SpaceX shares that erased nearly $1 trillion from the company’s market capitalisation in three straight sessions of declining trade.
SpaceX stock plunged 16% on June 22 alone, extending its cumulative decline from its June 16 peak to more than 30%. That is a stunning reversal for a company that had briefly ranked as the world’s fourth most valuable listed company. SpaceX had reached a market capitalisation of nearly $3 trillion in the days following its IPO, ranking it ahead of Amazon and Microsoft. And now valued at around $2 trillion, placing it seventh globally behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
What Triggered the SpaceX Wealth Wipeout
The selloff did not come from a single event it came from several converging pressures. Investor concern over SpaceX’s lofty post-IPO valuation was compounded by governance questions, with analysts flagging Musk’s outsized voting control relative to other shareholders. MSCI reportedly assigned SpaceX a CCC rating the lowest on its seven-tier sustainability scale citing significant environmental, social, and governance risks and the company’s lag behind peers on those measures. Then came a debt signal that caught markets off guard: SpaceX disclosed plans to issue bonds to refinance a short-term loan, opting to raise debt rather than dilute existing shareholders through a fresh equity sale a move that signalled its cash needs remain significant even after raising $75 billion in its IPO.
The scale of the personal loss is equally striking. Musk owns approximately 38% of SpaceX, including 4.8 billion shares and stock options, according to Forbes. Monday’s drop alone wiped out more than $152 billion from his net worth. The broader market did not help either. Wider weakness in the technology sector compounded the pressure, with the Nasdaq 100 on track to erase more than $1 trillion in market value on Tuesday as chipmakers and large-cap technology stocks declined sharply.
