South Africa-born billionaire Elon Musk has seen his net worth plummet in 2025 – in particular the last few weeks.
It’s been a bad year to date for the 53-year-old Tesla, SpaceXand X boss.
Musk has lost – wait for it – $143 billion in 2025 alone, according to the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
That’s more money than any single human being in the world possesses apart from just six other men.
Considering there have only been 99 days in 2025 as of Wednesday, 9 April, that equates to a loss of $1.44 billion per day.
Or R28.5 billion per day – at the current frightening exchange rate of R19.75/$.
Reports of a rift
There have been widespread reports of a rift between US President Donald Trump and Musk in recent days over the implementation of trade tariffs.
Musk’s Tesla company in particular relies heavily on imports from Japan, China and Taiwan.
Since the announcement of the tariffs, Tesla has experienced a significant decline in quarterly sales, likely due to a backlash against Musk’s role as a Trump adviser.
Last month, Trump announced a 20% tariff on goods from the European Union (EU) – which Musk openly disagreed with.
This week, Musk advised Trump to consider implementing a “zero-tariff situation” between Europe and the United States.
“I hope that the United States and Europe can establish a close partnership. There is an alliance already but I’m hopeful that they can be very close relationship with America and Europe,” Musk said.
“There should be more freedom of people to move between Europe and North America if they wish to work in Europe or America, they should be allowed to do so, so that has been my advice to the president,” he said.
Not backing down
Trump, however, is not backing down and insists on imposing tariffs on countries, especially Europe and China.
“I don’t want anything to go down but sometimes, you have to take medicine to fix something,” he said.
“Europe has treated us badly, we put a big tariff on Europe. They are coming to the table; they want to talk, but there’s no talk unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis. They have taken a lot of our wealth away and we are not going to allow it to happen.”
On Tuesday, as reported by The South African website, Musk blasted Trump’s senior trade advisor Peter Navarroas “truly a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks”.
The extraordinary public spat came after Navarro described Musk, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief as “not a car manufacturer” but “a car assembler” who relies on imported parts.
RELATED | China hawk Peter Navarro has Donald Trump’s ear
But don’t feel too bad for Elon.
He still boasts a reported net worth of $290 billion, well ahead of second-placed Jeff Bezos ($192 billion) in the world’s richest list.
But that gap is closing. Fast.
The rest of the top 10, in order, are Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet, Bernard Arnault, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Steve Ballmer and Sergey Brin.
Top 10 richest people in the world
Correct as of 9 April 2025
| Rank | Name | Net worth |
| 1 | Elon Musk | $290 billion |
| 2 | Jeff Bezos | $192 billion |
| 3 | Mark Zuckerberg | $181 billion |
| 4 | Warren Buffet | $154 billion |
| 5 | Bernard Arnault | $154 billion |
| 6 | Bill Gates | $147 billion |
| 7 | Larry Ellison | $144 billion |
| 8 | Larry Page | $131 billion |
| 9 | Steve Ballmer | $125 billion |
| 10 | Sergey Brin | $124 billion |
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