Elon Musk: The man with the bird

It's been a tough year, even for the richest man in the world.

On New Year's Day, Elon Musk's net worth was more than $270 billion, according to financial data service provider Bloomberg.

To date, what is probably the most prominent entrepreneur on the planet has lost an incredible 82 billion dollars in assets.

Sebastian Balzter

Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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Patrick Bernau

Responsible editor for economy and "value" of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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Sarah Huemer

Editor in the "Value" department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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Marcus Theurer

Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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In 2022, Musk made a name for himself with his confused takeover of the short message service Twitter (logo: a little blue bird).

It wasn't a good deal.

The $44 billion he bid for Twitter in April was "obviously" too much, Musk has since admitted.

Because since then, the valuations of technology stocks like Twitter have fallen drastically.

In between, Musk didn't really want the company anymore, but in the end he bought it, more out of necessity than out of conviction.

Since then, Musk has been causing fear and terror on Twitter with mass layoffs and wild demands for employees to work “hard core” in the future.

At first glance, however, the Twitter drama is only a side issue for Musk, because the majority of his fortune is in Tesla, the electric car pioneer that Musk made from scratch into the world market leader and of which he is still a major shareholder today.

Compared to the industrial giant Tesla, Twitter is economically tiny.

So it was primarily the fall in value of Tesla shares and less the failed Twitter purchase that severely added to Musk's wealth.

On closer inspection, however, there are indications that the Twitter antics are hurting Tesla's value - and thus Musk's personal fortune.

In a survey by the major bank Morgan Stanley, almost three quarters of the major investors and experts surveyed found that the topic of Twitter made a significant contribution to Tesla's poor share price development.

The finance pros simply think that the workaholic Musk is wasting too much of his scarce time on Twitter instead of focusing on the much more important job as Tesla CEO.

They see Musk's obsession with the intelligence agency, which he has now also taken over as chief, as a dangerous distraction.

Tesla is still on the road to success.

Vehicle sales are at record levels and are still growing.

In particular, the Model Y, an SUV, continues to be a bestseller.

But the growth recently missed the high expectations of the stock market.

In addition, Musk's reactivation of Donald Trump's Twitter account, which he arranged for, has caught him between the fronts of the American culture war fought bitterly by Republicans and Democrats.

That's also bad for business.

Mark Zuckerberg: The Obsolete

2022 has not been a good year for tech companies and their owners.

This was due to the fact that interest rates were rising.

Sounds surprising, but it's true: When interest rates are higher, the company value suffers, especially in companies whose peak profits lie far in the future.

Typically these are tech companies.

This makes it all the more difficult to finance further growth.

After the pandemic highs, the crash is now even deeper.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin know that, Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Oracle founder Larry Ellison know that.

Many tech companies have recently laid off employees.

But one was hit particularly hard in 2022, and that was Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The group, which is now called Meta, is no longer one of the six most valuable companies as it was last year, but has fallen to 24th place - and Zuckerberg's fortune shrank by almost two-thirds to $ 45 billion.