Tech Stock Decline Hits Billionaires as Musk Loses Billion Dollar Status

New Delhi, October 9 (IANS) – The recent slide in technology‑sector equities has once again pushed Elon Musk out of the exclusive $1 trillion net‑worth club. A sharp 3.5 percent tumble in SpaceX shares and a more than 2 percent dip in Tesla stock removed $36.4 billion from his wealth in a single session, Forbes reported on Thursday.

Musk’s total assets now stand at $991.6 billion, a notable decline from the brief rebound that saw him cross the trillion‑dollar line only three days earlier.

Investors are uneasy after SpaceX’s share fall, fearing the company may need to raise $40 billion for Nvidia chip purchases to power its AI initiatives. Tesla’s modest decline added further strain.

The ripple effect of the tech sell‑off extended to other high‑profile billionaires. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang saw his fortune shrink by $6.1 billion, landing at $199.3 billion, while Oracle co‑founder Larry Ellison’s wealth fell $8.9 billion to $176.8 billion.

Despite these drops, both Huang and Ellison remain in Forbes’ real‑time billionaire list, holding seventh and eighth positions respectively.

U.S. market indices reacted strongly: the Nasdaq‑100 recorded a 1.4 percent decline – the steepest one‑day slide in seven weeks – and the S&P 500 slipped 0.5 percent. Analysts attribute the downturn to heightened selling in technology and artificial‑intelligence‑linked stocks.

Conversely, India’s IT market showed strength on Friday, with the Nifty IT index jumping over 3 percent to break the 28,600 threshold in early trading.