Musk calls himself a 'former' trillionaire as Tesla, SpaceX shares cut his fortune in half

Elon Musk's net worth has been cut roughly in half in just over a month as shares of SpaceX and Tesla continue to fall.

According to Forbes, Musk's fortune stood at $695.7 billion as of Monday morning local time. That is about half the record $1.45 trillion he reached on June 16, when SpaceX shares surged following the company's stock market listing. It marks the first time his wealth has fallen below $700 billion since Dec. 18 last year — a span of seven months.

Musk had been riding high after becoming the world's first "trillionaire" — a person whose net worth exceeds $1 trillion. But the recent slide in SpaceX and Tesla shares has put him on the back foot. In a self-deprecating post on X, formerly Twitter, Musk recently described himself as a "Former" trillionaire.

The steepest driver of the wealth decline has been SpaceX's share price. According to MarketWatch, SpaceX shares fell 4 percent from the previous session's close Monday morning, hitting an all-time low of $108.66 per share. That is roughly 20 percent below the IPO price of $135, and 52 percent off the intraday high of $225.64 reached last month.

The drop was compounded by a setback during the 13th test flight of the Starship mega-rocket on Friday, when the first-stage Super Heavy booster struggled to reignite its engines and crashed hard into the sea.

Markets also expect further pressure from SpaceX's first post-IPO earnings report, due Tuesday, and the expiration of an insider share lock-up on Aug. 6. Investors are also concerned that, despite Musk's sweeping promises — from colonizing Mars to building data centers in space — SpaceX has yet to develop a consistently profitable business model beyond its Starlink satellite internet service.

"Investors may have looked at the financials and decided SpaceX is just too risky," said David Meyer, a senior analyst at Motley Fool.

Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle company, has also weighed on his fortune after posting earnings that fell short of market expectations, sending its shares into a prolonged slide.

Tesla shares dropped 15 percent after the company's second-quarter earnings release on Thursday, and fell further Monday morning to $307.92 per share. The stock is now down 30 percent year-to-date, erasing all gains over the past year.

Although Tesla sold more vehicles, net profit fell 5 percent year-on-year to $1.11 billion, hurt by price cuts and rising operating costs. The result fell well short of the market consensus of $1.3 billion, disappointing investors.

Deutsche Bank on Monday cut its price target for Tesla to $420 from $465.