Elon Musk loses £8bn net worth since buying Twitter but stays richest man

If there's any proof that the rich and powerful play by very different rules to the rest of us, Elon Musk is it.

Since taking over Twitter last week, Musk's net worth has dropped by £7.8billion (around $9bn).

You'd think losing that much money—more than the NHS has received in additional funding this year—would force someone to sell their possessions and move out, but no: Musk is still the richest man in the world by a country mile.

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According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk's fortune has dropped to £177bn ($204bn), meaning he's lost around a quarter of his wealth since the start of the year.

But Musk's risky and questionable purchase of the social media giant has barely made a dent in his relative overall wealth, while ordinary people's budgets are being sunk by rises in energy and grocery bills.

Since completing his buyout of Twitter on Thursday, Musk has already made some drastic changes, including firing the entire board and senior leadership team.

His biggest planned change, which plans to charge a monthly fee for blue ticks, has already attracted widespread criticism.

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The billionaire even had a public spat with legendary author Stephen King, who said he would quit the platform if Musk implemented plans to charge $20 (£17) per month for blue ticks.

Musk said: "We need to pay the bills somehow!" and revised the monthly fee down to $8 (£6.95).

This led author and ecologist George Monbiot to state: "I'm beginning to get an inkling of suspicion that Elon Musk hasn't the faintest idea of what he's doing."

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