Elon Musk, the visionary behind Tesla, has once again ascended to the pinnacle of wealth, surpassing Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook. This shift in fortune follows Meta’s recent market meltdown, which saw its capitalization plummet by $132.2 billion on Thursday, despite reporting better-than-anticipated first-quarter profitability, as reported by Quartz.
The drop in Meta’s value is attributed to investor apprehensions surrounding the tech giant’s AI endeavors and its subdued second-quarter outlook. On Friday, during regular trading, Meta’s value dwindled to an estimated $1.11 trillion. According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, Musk’s net worth stood at an impressive $184 billion as of Thursday. In contrast, Zuckerberg’s wealth has taken a significant hit, dropping from an estimated $175 billion last week to a mere $157 billion, as per the same index.
This turn of events unfolds shortly after Tesla disclosed its underwhelming earnings results, revealing a concerning 9% year-over-year decline in revenue growth, marking the steepest such decline since 2012. However, Musk’s assurance to investors that Tesla would soon introduce lower-priced electric vehicles (EVs) appears to have bolstered their confidence in the company’s future prospects.
In contrast to Tesla’s relatively optimistic outlook, Meta’s earnings report failed to inspire similar investor confidence, despite the revelation of a 30% increase in revenue compared to the previous year. Meta’s stock price plunged by a significant 12% following the earnings release, as investors remained concerned about the company’s AI focus and its conservative revenue projections for the second quarter. Meta’s forecast anticipates revenue in the range of $36.5 billion to $39 billion for the upcoming quarter.
