Jeff Bezos dethrones Elon Musk to assume top spot on billionaire list as Tesla Inc shares slide by 2.4%

With shares of Tesla Inc sliding 2.4 percent on Tuesday, $4.6 billion got knocked off from the company CEO Elon Musk’s fortune dethroning him from the top spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranking. With this Musk’s brief reign at the top of the billionaire list ended. According to a report by Bloomberg, the top spot was once again reclaimed by Jeff Bezos, who had held the title for more than three years until last month. Bezos reclaimed the numero uno position with a net worth of $191.2 billion, which is more than $955 million than Musk’s entire fortune. The third spot on the billionaire list has been taken up by Bill Gates, while Bernard Arnault and Mark Zuckerberg take up the fourth and fifth spot respectively. The report added that Musk’s drop comes after six weeks as the world’s richest person, during which he “fanned the flames” of Reddit-driven GameStop Corporation and sent the shares of Etsy Inc, Shopify Inc, CD Projekt SA and Signal Advance Inc soaring with his tweets. Tesla hit a market value of $700bn for the first time in January, making it worth more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, GM, and Ford combined. Musk saw his fortune rise over the last year, surpassing Bill Gates to become the world’s second-richest person in November a week after overtaking Facebook CEDO Mark Zuckerberg. Meanwhile, even though Elon Musk’s Tesla registered a subsidiary in Bengaluru earlier in January, confusion over it reigns even after Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa issued a statement confirming the former’s entry into India, with the company remaining tight-lipped about its plans.