Elon Musk claims to have slashed billions of dollars worth of wasteful spending during his time as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—but his controversial role may have done more damage to his pocketbook than he anticipated.
This year alone, Musk has lost some $80 billion in his net worth, bringing his current value to about $352 billion—a far cry from his over $450 billion peak late last year, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.
Musk’s wealth declines are largely tied to his 13% stake in struggling Tesla. Even after shareholders practically begged the billionaire to leave DOGE and focus on Tesla full-time, Musk’s return to Austin hasn’t been so glamorous. The electric vehicle company missed Wall Street expectations and experienced a double-digit percentage revenue decline in the second quarter of 2025. Tesla’s stock price is down nearly 20% this year.
But shareholders are doing the opposite of pulling the plug on Musk; they’ve just awarded him a pay package worth some $29 billion—in what shareholders called a “critical first step toward” keeping “Elon’s energies focused on Tesla,” reports The New York Times.
While Musk remains the No. 1 richest person on the planet, fellow members of the ultra rich like Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg are tapping at the door to replace him at the top of the billionaire list.
Musk’s climb to the top of the world
2024 was a standout year for Tesla. The company’s stock nearly doubled, with the market cap topping $1.4 trillion in December. Due to his sizable stake, the jump soared Musk’s wealth and seemingly cemented him at the time at the top of the billionaires after years of back and forth among billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.
Musk’s success also comes from his stakes in his other companies, including XAI Holdings (the combined firm of social media X and AI startup xAI), SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company.
But like struggles at Tesla, his companies are causing financial headaches for the billionaire. xAI is reportedly burning through $1 billion a month and The Boring Company’s valuation has decreased to $6.4 billion from $8.6 billion in July 2023, according to Bloomberg.
While he did not take a salary from his role at DOGE, his companies have largely benefited from working with the government over the years. According to The Washington Post, his businesses have received some $38 billion in contracts, loans, subsidies, and more.
Now, Musk has an uphill battle ahead of him in the court of public opinion; just 30% of voters have a favorable view of Musk, according to a Quinnipiac Poll released in June. And after a public feud with President Donald Trump over the federal budget, even support among Republicans has dipped.
How Musk may lose his richest man title
While Musk has lost the most wealth of anyone in 2025 so far, he’s not alone. Jeff Bezos is also in the red, losing about $1.7 billion this year, largely thanks to Amazon’s struggling stock performance. Bill Gates has also lost a sizable amount of wealth—some $36 billion—but it’s been because of his ramped-up philanthropy efforts.
On the flip side, Larry Ellison (+$102 billion), Mark Zuckerberg (+$56 billion), and Jensen Huang ($37 billion) have seen sizable wealth increases.
Only $60 billion now separates Musk and Ellison as No. 1 and 2, according to Bloomberg, thanks to the newfound success of Ellison’s tech giant, Oracle. The company’s newfound focus on AI helped earnings soar and contributed to a stock jump of over 50% this year. Ellison’s wealth has grown by over $100 billion this year—and it’s likely to only continue.
“Oracle’s future is bright in this new era of cloud computing. Oracle will be the number one cloud database company,” Ellison said in the business’ earnings call in June. “Oracle is already prospering in this new era of cloud computing and AI, and it’s just the beginning.”
If the trends continue, and Oracle continues to grow while Tesla flounders, Ellison could replace Musk as the richest person in the world by year’s end.
