Tesla’s Elon Musk speeds past Mark Zuckerberg on the billionaires list after Meta stock plummets on its cash-sucking AI plans

Tesla’s stock rebound has helped Elon Musk get an edge over megabillionaire rival Mark Zuckerberg to safe his place as the world’s third-richest billionaire.

Due to on-paper positive factors from his EV maker, Musk’s web value rose to $185 billion, an almost 9% leap from earlier this week that put him forward of Zuckerberg’s $157 billion, based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. At the similar time, disappointing Meta earnings took a $14 billion toll on CEO Zuckerberg’s web value.

Friday’s billionaire list reversal comes after Zuckerberg surpassed the Tesla CEO earlier this month for the first time since 2020. Meta’s skyrocketing shares pushed Zuckerberg forward of Musk as Tesla’s latest bother, together with value cuts and its first year-over-year gross sales decline since the pandemic, made it one in all the worst-performing shares in the S&P 500.

Tesla’s shares are nonetheless down 31% 12 months so far, whereas Meta’s shares are up about 27% over the similar interval. The web value of each chief executives are intently tied to their flagship corporations. Zuckerberg owns or controls greater than 350 million shares of Meta, giving him a 13% stake in the firm, based on the firm’s proxy assertion. Musk owns about 715 million shares of Tesla, simply over a 20% stake in the firm.

Since reporting earnings on Tuesday, shares of Musk’s EV maker are up greater than 18%, whilst the firm’s web earnings fell by 55% year-over-year. Musk’s assurances that Tesla would quickly launch new fashions and enhance its manufacturing utilizing present services gave buyers hope that the EV maker’s latest lackluster efficiency was set for a turnaround.

In the meantime, Meta shares are down about 11% since reporting earnings after market shut on Wednesday. Zuckerberg warned buyers of potential stock volatility to come back as he steers Meta towards AI adoption—an endeavor that the firm stated might be an enormous cash drain. The corporate predicted that its pursuit of AI dominance may price it $40 billion in capital expenditures, up $5 billion from what it had forecast in October.

The 2 CEOs have an extended historical past of rivalry that grew heated after Meta launched a Twitter competitor quickly after Musk purchased the social media firm in 2022. Final 12 months, Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a “cage match” that the Meta CEO appeared keen to just accept.

After some back-and-forth, combined martial arts aficionado Zuckerberg referred to as off the match in August, saying that Musk was being flaky.

“I will focus on competing with individuals who take the sport critically,” he stated at the time.

This story was initially featured on Fortune.com