Elon Musk’s net worth slips below $200 billion as Tesla shares waver

(Reuters) – Elon Musk’s net worth dropped below $200 billion on Tuesday as investors dumped Tesla Inc shares on fears the top executive and largest shareholder of the world’s most valuable electric-vehicle maker is more preoccupied with Twitter.

Musk now has a net worth of $194.8 billion, according to Forbes, with a big share of that coming from his nearly 15% stake in Tesla, which has a market value of $622 billion.

The company has lost nearly half its market value and his net worth has dropped by $70 billion since he bid for Twitter in April.

Tesla dips as investors worry over Musk’s attention to Twitter

https://graphics.reuters.com/TESLA-STOCKS/zdvxdybllvx/Pasted%20image%201667923077412.png

Investors initially fled Tesla on worries over share sale by Musk, who has divested at least $15 billion worth of stock. He closed the $44-billion deal last month with $13 billion in loans and a $33.5 billion equity commitment.

Now Wall Street fears that Musk has stretched himself too thin at a time when the EV maker is ramping up production and faces rising competition.

“It seems like Elon Musk is spending 100% of the time on Twitter and you know, it might need more capital,” said Jay Hatfield at Infrastructure Capital Management.

Since buying Twitter, Musk has made very few tweets on Tesla, a practice that helped him gain traction on the platform. He has instead used Twitter to announce plans for the social media company such as the $8 per month subscription for blue tick verification.

The net worth of the world’s richest person, who also owns rocket company SpaceX, is roughly $40 billion more than the second richest person, LVMH-owner Bernard Arnault.

Tesla shares were down 2% at $193.7 in afternoon trading, falling for a third straight session.

(Reporting by Nivedita Balu, additional reporting by Shubham Batra and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni and Arun Koyyur)