Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, saw his net worth fall by $33.5 billion on Wednesday as investors sold off shares in his companies in anticipation of the incoming Democratic majorities in Congress.
Musk, the CEO and largest shareholder of Tesla and SpaceX, saw the total value of his wealth decline by 3.7% in just one day, according to Bloomberg’s billionaires index, which tracks the wealth of the world’s richest people and updates it every evening.
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Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars backing Republicans against Democrats in the midterm elections and was one of the architects of the Department of Government Efficiency.
The blue wave raises the odds of Democratic investigations into companies seen as close to President Donald Trump.
And Musk’s businesses took a hit on Wednesday after already seeing declines in overnight trading. Tesla fell about 3.3%, while the total value of SpaceX declined by about 3.8% on Wednesday.
Democrats could deploy oversight investigations into Musk over his leadership of DOGE or for his decision-making when it comes to satellite communications in war-torn Ukraine.
Despite Musk’s decline in net worth and his companies’ losses, the stock market as a whole performed very well on the day after the election.
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 1,570 points, or 3%, the best single day since April 2025. Meanwhile, the benchmark S&P 500 closed up nearly 1.6%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite gained 1.44% in value.
Oil prices also fell on Wednesday, with Brent crude down more than 8% to just over $95 a barrel.