Tesla CEO Elon Musk reclaims "world’s richest man" title as shares rebound

Eccentric billionaire and Twitter owner Elon Musk snatched back his status as the world’s richest person on Monday, three days after a plunge in Tesla shares shaved billions off his net worth and pushed him down to second place.

By the time Wall Street markets closed, Musk had gained $5.9 billion, bringing his net worth to $242.4 billion, Forbes’ real-time billionaire tracker showed, as Tesla shares reversed last week’s downward trend, The Messenger reports.

Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer, lost his "world's richest" title last Friday when investors sent shares in the electric vehicle maker dropping for a third consecutive day. The day before, he bled nearly $18 billion but still retained the top perch above Bernard Arnault, the chairman and CEO of French luxury goods behemoth LVMH Moët Hennessy — Louis Vuitton.

Musk’s gain was Arnault's pain: The French luxury mogul on Monday fell back to second place at $234.6 billion, a drop of $2.8 billion from last Friday.

Musk, 52, and Arnault, 74, frequently jostle for the top spot. In third place — far behind the top two — is Amazon founder and Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos, with $151.5 billion.

Shares in LVMH, which owns Christian Dior, Tiffany and luxury watchmaker Bulgari, plunged last Friday amid concerns about consumer spending on expensive goods. JPMorgan Chase wrote in April that luxury shoppers in the U.S. and Europe are “tightening their purse strings.”

Tesla's shares have been battered after Musk told Wall Street analysts last week on a disappointing earnings call that the EV maker would offer new customers three-year and seven-year loans to finance their Tesla purchases. The company is seen by some investors as overvalued.

Musk announced yesterday that he was changing Twitter’s logo from the iconic blue bird to an X, to reflect the name of parent company X Corp. He bought the social media company for $44 billion in October in a deal that took the company private.