The World’s Wealthiest Person: Elon Musk Briefly Loses Title to French Billionaire

Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion after initially backing out of the deal.
SpaceX, Neuralink and OpenAI are some of Musk’s famous creations.
Neuralink is under federal investigation.

The wealthiest man in the world

According to Forbes wealth tracker website, Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and now the new CEO of Twitter briefly lost the title of the wealthiest person in the world to French Billionaire Bernard Arnault.

Musk lost the top spot because of a drop in the value of his stake in Tesla and SpaceX. Purchasing Twitter also affected his wealth. The drop seemed like a fluctuation and not a long-term change.

Berard Arnault and Family own the LVMH group (which is the parent company of luxury fashion brand Louis Vuitton).

Musk became the world’s wealthiest person in January 2021, surpassing Jeff Bezos, who held the title for nearly 4 years. At press time, Musks’s real time net worth was $185.4 billion.

The 51 year old’s net worth fell by $70 billion and Tesla has lost almost half its market value since his controversial Twitter takeover. Although Musk had claimed he would rid the microblogging site of its bot- and spam-account problem, several banned accounts have been reinstated including those of former US president Donald Trump and popular artist Kanye West. Ye’s account was banned again.

The billionaire owns 5 companies. Apart from the ones mentioned above, he also owns Neuralink which is developing a brain implant (Neuralink N1 chip) that will monitor brain activity and allow mechanical actions using bluetooth technology. Neuralink is working on revolutionary stuff; the problem however, lies in the research methods.

Neuralink: all you need to know about the federal investigation

The Neuralink N1 chip is being tested on animals. Reuters has reported that staff members have complained that Musk is pressuring them to expedite research which caused “needless suffering and death.”

Per the report, 1500 animals including pigs, sheep, monkeys have died since 2018. However, the cause of death was not clear. The Inspector General of the US Department of Agriculture sanctioned a probe based on a federal prosecutor’s request.

The report reveals that amidst tight and excessive deadlines set by Musk, over-stressed several staffers were not ready for several experiments. Several botched up experiments resulted in animal deaths. Employees also noted that the botched experiments would have to be repeated.

Musk has not reacted to the report yet. He recently tweeted that he was “confident the Neuralink device is ready for humans, so timing is a function of working through the approval process”.

Human trials were originally scheduled for 2020. After multiple delays, Musk recently stated that human clinical trials would begin in 6 months. The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval is required for conducting trials on humans. Neuralink has submitted all necessary documents to the FDA.

Andrew is a blockchain developer who developed his interest in cryptocurrencies while his post-graduation. He is a keen observer of details and shares his passion for writing along with being a developer. His backend knowledge about blockchain helps him give a unique perspective to his writing