Think you’re having a bad year investing in the S&P 500? Elon Musk’s loss is bigger than anyone else’s.
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More than $85 billion in Musk’s current stake in the electric vehicle maker has been lost this year, according to InvestorBusiness Daily’s analysis of data from S&P Global Market Intelligence and MarketSmith.
The stock’s fall was so big that Musk lost bragging rights as the world’s richest man, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Mook is now the second wealth-wise of luxury brand company LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton with Chairman Bernard Arnault.
To put that in perspective, Musk has lost more on Tesla than 80% of all companies in the S&P 500 this year. And now Musk has the dubious distinction of losing the most money on Tesla of any top investor in any stock that’s hit the market cap this year. Yes, he’s missing more than Mark Zuckerberg. Meta forums (META) (down $75.2 billion).
The decline in Tesla shares was a concern of Wall Street following the acquisition of Musk’s messaging service Twitter.
“It’s been a rough few months ahead for Tesla investors as they’ve been hammered repeatedly. Musk Twitter’s antics and stock are now deep in the investor’s penalty box until shipments arrive in early January and we get a better sense of the direction of shipments and production in 2023.
The $85 billion hole in Elon Musk’s pocket
Tesla stock, which is down 54% this year, is responsible for Musk’s rapidly evaporating fortune. Musk is still the largest owner of Tesla stock, with 14% of the company, or a stake worth $80 billion, taking a hit.
But don’t think Musk is the only one suffering from this massive destruction of Tesla’s shareholder wealth. Tesla’s stock has lost nearly $550 billion this year, the sixth-biggest decliner among the S&P 500.
And you can be a big owner of the stock. Thanks to Tesla’s huge market value ($514 billion), the stock is still at 1.3% position in the S&P 500 and the world’s most popular ETF, the S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY).
Because of this, all the major mutual fund and ETF companies are also in deep. Vanguard is the second-largest owner of Tesla stock. The mutual fund and ETF giant owns 6.8% of the company, worth $38 billion. So Vanguard investors alone lost more than $38 billion in their positions.
Vanguard isn’t alone: all the big financial firms are into Tesla. Blackrock ( BLK ) owns 5.4% of Tesla, while State Street Global Advisors owns 3.2% and Capital Research & Management owns 3.1%.
Elon Musk: He likes suffering.
But it’s important to note that Tesla is far from the only megacap company to see billions in market capitalization this year.
Musk’s rival, Jeff Bezos, probably isn’t laughing at his current position. Amazon.com ( AMZN ) shares of the e-commerce giant are down 45 percent this year, losing $747 billion. That’s more market value to lose than any other S&P 500 company.
Of that, Bezos himself lost $74 billion in personal paper wealth. That’s not as much as mucus, but it’s still enough to make teeth.
Vanguard, with a market value of $684 billion this year, will carry the biggest losses in Alphabet’s epic drop. Google parent’s 34% stock drop this year is hitting No. 1 Vanguard the hardest. Vanguard’s shares fell by $44.3 billion.
Volatility is definitely an element of investing. But these investors are taking it to extremes.
The biggest S&P 500 losers
This year, the top owners of the shares with the highest market value
| Company | Ticker | Stock YTD | The biggest owner | Losses on stocks this year ($ billion) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla | (TSLA) | -54.3% | Elon Musk | – 85.3 dollars |
| Meta forums | (meta) | -64.3% | Mark Zuckerberg | – 75.2 dollars |
| Amazon.com | (AMZN) | -44.5% | Jeff Bezos | – 73.7 dollars |
| Microsoft | (MSFT) | -23.6% | Vanguard | – 50.4 dollars |
| Alphabet | (GOOGL) | -34.0% | Vanguard | – 44.3 dollars |
| Apple | (AAPL) | -18.1% | Vanguard | – 40.8 dollars |
| Nivea | (NVDA) | -38.6% | Vanguard | – 23.1 dollars |
| Netflix | (NFLX) | -46.8% | Capital research | – 12.1 dollars |
| PayPal Holdings | (PYPL) | -60.9% | Vanguard | – 11.0 dollars |
| sales force | (CRM) | -46.6% | Vanguard | – 9.5 dollars |