Elon Musk’s net worth has fallen by more than $684 billion from its peak as shares of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and SpaceX retreated sharply amid ongoing merger speculation.
Bloomberg data showed that Musk’s wealth dropped by over $18 billion in a single trading session on Friday, bringing his total fortune to $684 billion.
At his peak, Musk was worth over $1.33 trillion, meaning the cumulative loss now exceeds $646 billion by Bloomberg’s calculations.
That decline alone surpasses the combined net worth of Larry Page and Jeff Bezos, who were worth a combined $549 billion at the time of comparison.
Tesla stock has plunged 37% from its highest point this year, with the sell-off accelerating following the company’s most recent earnings report.
That report revealed that Tesla’s cash burn accelerated in the second quarter due to ongoing artificial intelligence investments, while its gross margin also came in short of expectations.
SpaceX shares dropped to $108 on Friday, down sharply from an all-time high of $225, causing its market capitalization to fall from over $3 trillion to approximately $1.4 trillion.
The company is set to publish its earnings on Tuesday, with analysts estimating that revenue rose to over $6.8 billion in the second quarter.
That growth trajectory is expected to continue as SpaceX begins accounting for data center revenue from clients including Reflection AI, Alphabet, and Anthropic.
Adding to investor uncertainty, the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk is considering a merger between SpaceX and Tesla, a move that could create one of the largest conglomerates in the United States.
As part of that potential deal, Musk is reportedly considering selling or spinning off Tesla’s Chinese operations to help facilitate the transaction.
The rumored merger fits a broader pattern of consolidation across Musk’s business empire, having merged X with xAI last year to create a combined social media and artificial intelligence company.
SpaceX subsequently merged with xAI earlier this year, and Musk also launched Terafab, a multibillion-dollar semiconductor project in Austin, Texas, developed jointly by Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, with Intel later joining to assist with chip fabrication.
Despite the scale and ambition behind these moves, investors have grown increasingly skeptical of conglomerates in recent years, instead rewarding companies that choose to separate their divisions.
General Electric serves as a prominent example of this trend, having split into three distinct entities: GE Aerospace, GE Healthcare, and GE Vernova, each unlocking separate market valuations.
The contrasting investor sentiment around consolidation versus separation is likely to weigh heavily on how markets respond to any formal announcement of a Tesla-SpaceX merger.
With SpaceX earnings due imminently and merger speculation still unresolved, both stocks remain under significant pressure as traders assess the long-term implications of Musk’s restructuring ambitions.
