Elon Musk lost $68 billion in October as SpaceX shares slid

Elon Musk just lost $68 billion in October, watching his net worth drop to $865 billion after an artificial intelligence stock sell-off wiped out the gains that briefly made him a trillionaire again. According to Billionaires.Africa, the fortune shrank rapidly as shares of SpaceX, the rocket, satellite and AI company he controls, headed back toward their IPO price.

The decline included a staggering $48 billion drop on October 30 alone, though Musk still remains the world's richest person by a wide margin. SpaceX shares fell 5.6% on October 30 to close at $135.90, just above the $135 price when the company went public in June, and roughly 40% below their record high from earlier in the year.

Musk holds about 4.77 billion shares and 350 million options in SpaceX, but those holdings are locked up until June 12, 2027, leaving him unable to sell a single share. The month actually started strong when Tesla Inc., the electric car maker where he serves as chief executive, reported solid deliveries and a successful Starship test flight pushed him past $1 trillion.

But the momentum stalled as technology stocks suffered across the board, driven by investor concerns that spending on artificial intelligence data centers is running far ahead of actual revenue. SpaceX alone spent $19.6 billion on capital projects in the third quarter and expects to spend up to $40 billion in the fourth quarter.

Other tech billionaires took heavy hits as well, with Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin losing billions alongside Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell. That is a brutal reminder of how fast paper wealth can evaporate when public markets turn south.

Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, edited