Musk wins as biggest loser in history

For most of last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had more money than anyone else on the planet.

Now he holds the dubious distinction of losing more money than anyone who's ever lived.

Guinness World Records said a $182 billion plunge in Musk's net worth since November 2021 qualifies as the "worst loss of fortune in history." The loss, based on estimates from Forbes, is more than triple the previous record of $58.6 billion lost by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son during the dot-com crash of 2000. Even after accounting for inflation, Musk nearly doubled the amount lost by Son.

A 65 percent drop in Tesla's stock value in 2022 was the biggest reason so much of Musk's fortune evaporated. His $44 billion purchase of Twitter didn't help.

Forbes pegs his current net worth at $138 billion, vs. $320 billion at its peak. That's still enough to rank him as the second-richest person, behind fashion magnate Bernard Arnault at $190 billion.

And Tesla remains the world's most valuable automaker, with a market cap just shy of $400 billion. It also became the first American automaker to win the U.S. luxury sales race in nearly a quarter century.