After Tesla stock plunged by over 20 percent on Tuesday, the net worth of its CEO Elon Musk once again dipped below that of Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg.
Just over a week ago, Musk became the fifth person in the world to amass a wealth of over $100 billion, winning him the title of centibillionaire. Now, after the market shifted against his electric car company, he is worth roughly $82.2 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Musk's net worth tanked by $16.3 billion on Tuesday meaning he has dropped out of the top five of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index—a daily ranking of the world's richest people. He was overtaken by Bernard Arnault and Warren Buffett.
Bloomberg reported that Musk's loss had been the "largest single-day wipeout in the history" of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Broadly, this week hasn't been kind to any of the technology industry titans at the top of the list. Yesterday, the net worth of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plunged by over $7.9 billion, while Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates lost more than $2 billion.
Zuckerberg, clinging to his centibillionaire club membership with $103 billion, remains in third place on the rich list, although still suffered a $4.26 billion drop Tuesday.
The freefall of Tesla stock this week came after investors were seemingly spooked by its exclusion from the S&P 500 by the index's committee last Friday, CNBC reported.
The stock market index, which tracks the 500 largest U.S. publicly traded companies by market capitalization, announced in a press release on September 4 that it was adding online retailer Etsy, pharmaceutical firm Catalent and automation firm Teradyne.
With Tesla's finances showing four consecutive quarters of profit and the firm's value rising by over 300 percent this year, some investors expected Tesla to join.
"Unclear why [Tesla] was not included in the recent rebalancing cycle, though we do think the stock will eventually be added to the S&P 500, having fulfilled all inclusion criteria," analyst Ben Kallo at the financial services company Baird said in a research note, MarketWatch reported.
The business news website reported on Wednesday that Tesla stock had lost approximately one-third of its value in just over a week. Tesla confirmed in a regulatory filing published Tuesday that it had completed the sale of $5 billion in new stock, following a five-to-one split.
Despite the sudden fall, Tesla's stock is likely to rise again. On September 22, the firm is scheduled to hold a "battery day" event promising innovations in the tech that powers its vehicles. Speculation suggests that Musk is set to unveil a "million mile" battery.
