Jeff Bezos reclaims title of world’s richest after Elon Musk slips

Jeff Bezos, who’d held the title for more than three years until last month, reclaimed his No. 1 position with a net worth of $191.2 billion, or $955 million more than Musk.

Elon Musk’s reign as the the world’s richest person was brief.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (AP)

Tesla Inc. shares slid 2.4% on Tuesday, erasing $4.6 billion from its chief executive officer’s fortune and knocking him from the top spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranking.

Jeff Bezos, who’d held the title for more than three years until last month, reclaimed his No. 1 position with a net worth of $191.2 billion, or $955 million more than Musk.

Musk’s drop ends -- for now -- an almost six-week stint as world’s richest person that saw him front and center in some of the biggest market events so far this year. He fanned the flames of the Reddit-driven GameStop Corp. rally and sent the shares of Etsy Inc., Shopify Inc., CD Projekt SA and Signal Advance Inc. soaring with boosterish tweets.

Recently he’s roiled the price of Bitcoin and even Dogecoin, a lesser-known cryptocurrency that Musk spiked with a tweeted meme earlier this month. Bitcoin meanwhile blew past $50,000 days after Tesla revealed plans to hold $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency on its balance sheet. Still, despite Musk’s seemingly constant social media presence, Tesla shares have slid almost 10% from a Jan. 26 peak.

It may not be long though before Musk leapfrogs Bezos once again. Musk’s SpaceX, a rival to Bezos’s Blue Origin, is in talks to raise funds at a valuation as high as $92 billion, double its current value.