SpaceX shares slide, stripping Musk of 'trillionaire' title

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has surrendered his title as the world's first trillionaire just over 10 days after claiming it.

Forbes reported Wednesday that Musk's net worth stood at $962 billion based on Tuesday's closing prices, falling short of the $1 trillion threshold.

Musk crossed into trillionaire territory on June 12, when SpaceX went public and his net worth swelled to $1.1 trillion, making him the first person in history to reach that milestone.

His fortune peaked at $1.45 trillion on June 16, when SpaceX shares surged as much as 40 percent intraday to an all-time high.

Since then, a sharp pullback in SpaceX's share price has steadily eroded his wealth.

Conditions tied to Musk's Tesla stock options also weighed on his assessed net worth.

In exercising Tesla stock options granted in 2018, Musk recently sold $7.1 billion worth of Tesla shares to cover taxes and related costs.

The shares he stands to receive from exercising those options are subject to a condition requiring him to remain at Tesla as CEO or as an executive overseeing engineering and operations through January 2028.

Applying its own valuation methodology, Forbes excluded roughly $116 billion worth of those unvested shares from its calculation of Musk's net worth.

The combination of SpaceX's share price correction and the restrictions on his Tesla stock has pushed Musk back below the trillion-dollar mark, returning him to billionaire status.

The wealth gap has already sparked a backlash. On June 12, the day SpaceX listed, protesters gathered outside JPMorgan's headquarters in New York to denounce Musk's trillionaire status and demand an end to financial policies they said favor the wealthy.

SpaceX shares, which had fallen about 31 percent from their June 16 record high of $225.64, were trading around $156 as of 2:30 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, up roughly 0.5 percent on the day.