Washington: Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has lost $12.6 billion, which accounts for 7% of his fortune, over the past 24 hours after the failure of the Starship spacecraft during its launch attempt and the publication of US electric car maker Tesla’s Q1 financial report, the Bloomberg Billionaires (BBI) Index showed on Friday.
Now Musk’s fortune stands at $164 billion and he ranks second in the world’s billionaire rating.
On Thursday, SpaceX carried out the first combined launch of the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy first stage booster. The spacecraft was deliberately blown up during the test flight after it began to lose altitude when multiple engines failed. The spacecraft climbed to an apogee of about 39 kilometers (24 miles) over the Gulf of Mexico, which is the highest point any Starship spacecraft has reached to-date in the program’s history.
Additionally, Tesla published a Q1 2023 report, showing that the company’s net profit attributable to shareholders decreased by 24% year-on-year. Tesla’s shares fell by 9.75% at the end of April 20 trading.