On Thursday tesla shares slid by 9.7%, highest since 20th April 2023. On 20th April tesla shares had slid by 10%. There are amazing parallels between tumble of 20th April and yesterday (20th July). Both tumbles happened on 20th day of the months April and July, chosen day for both tumbles was Thursday. These are only cosmetic parallels, real similarity is reason for the tumbles. Reason for both tumbles is same. 20th April tumble was caused due to Elon Musk’s signal that Tesla will keep cutting prices of its electric vehicles and yesterday’s tumble happened due to warning by Tesla that it will have to keep cutting prices of its electric vehicles.

In the aftermath of tesla share prices tumble of yesterday caused by Tesla’s warning that it will have to keep cutting prices of its EVs, wealth of Tesla CEO slumped by $20.3 billion narrowing gap between his wealth and that of second richest person in the world, Bernard Arnault. Although still net worth of Musk is $33 billion more compared to Arnault, chairman of luxury goods maker LMVH. Musk had surpassed Arnault in June to become world’s richest person, in the aftermath of LMVH shares sliding by 2.6%. Arnault and Musk have been involved in a constant tussle this year for world’s richest person tag in Bloomberg billionaire’s index.

Musk was not the odd man out, he was not the only US technology billionaire having a tough day on Thursday. Meta Platforms Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos, Alphabet Inc. co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, former Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer and Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison collectively shed $20.8 billion in net worth as the Nasdaq 100 dropped by 2.3%.

The current tesla shares tumble is direct consequence of Tesla’s warning that more hits to its already shrunk profitability is expected. Automotive gross margin dropped to four year low in the second quarter due to months of markdowns. Musk has stated that if interest rates keep rising then Tesla will have to keep lowering the prices of its EVs. Elon Musk derives his wealth from SpaceX and twitter apart from Tesla. His wealth has gone up by $118 billion this year and Tesla shares has climbed 136%. On the other hand, Arnault’s net worth rose by $39 billion to $201.2 billion this year and his Paris based company LVMH has gained 26% this year.