Elon Musk is back on top of Bloomberg's ranking of the richest people on earth. The billionaire lost his position to Bernard Arnault, who helms French high-fashion conglomerate LVMH, in December of 2022, as Tesla's stock declined significantly amid a broader market downturn.
But as the stock has recovered in early 2023, Musk's fortune has risen with it.
Shares of Tesla are up around 95 percent since January 1, and Musk's net worth was $187.1 billion at the close of markets on Monday, placing Arnault in second place with his $185.3 billion.
Now the big question is whether Tesla will keep up the momentum. The stock is still down more than 80 percent over the past 12 months, and the headwinds it faced in 2022 remain.
In particular, Musk remains saddled with making Twitter financially viable. On Saturday night, the social media platform laid off at least 200 people, which is roughly 10 percent the remaining 2,000 who work for the company. There were around 7,500 employees when Musk started making cuts to reduce costs.
In addition, waning demand for electric vehicles has forced Tesla to cut prices to move inventory. While the cuts have boosted sales, they remain sluggish in key markets such as China.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
Universal Music Group and AI platform Udio have settled a copyright lawsuit and will collaborate on a new music creation and streaming platform. The companies announced on Wednesday that they reached a compensatory legal settlement and new licensing agreements. These agreements aim to provide more revenue opportunities for Universal's artists and songwriters. The rise of AI song generation tools like Udio has disrupted the music streaming industry, leading to accusations from record labels. This deal marks the first since Universal and others sued Udio and Suno last year. Financial terms of the settlement weren't disclosed.
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global, breaks down September’s CPI print and inflation trends, explaining what it means for markets.
