Elon Musk Lost $113 Billion in Two Days and Won’t Even Notice

In short: Elon Musk’s fortune fell by about $113 billion on 4 and 5 November 2026, after the US midterms, on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He is still worth about $785 billion. The same week, garment workers in Bangladesh struck for a minimum wage of about $242 a month, faced tear gas, and won a new pay structure from December.

On Wednesday 4 November, Elon Musk lost $33.5 billion. On Thursday 5 November he lost another $79.7 billion. That’s about $113 billion in two days on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Spread across the two days, it works out at roughly $650,000 a second.

Pass the tiny violin. Or keep it, because he’s still worth about $785 billion. He sold no shares. Nothing in his life changed except a number on a screen somewhere in New York.

If you spent a million dollars every single day, what he has left would last you about 2,150 years. You’d still be shopping in the year 4176.

Why did Elon Musk lose $113 billion?

The trigger was the US midterms. Investors got nervous that the new Congress would start asking questions. Democrats want to look into Musk’s time running DOGE, the White House cost-cutting unit, and into SpaceX, which has earned billions from federal contracts. The incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee has promised to investigate “corporate corruption”, and a senator sent Musk a letter about SpaceX’s Pentagon contracts.

That was enough. A whiff of homework, and $113 billion went up in smoke.

One Wall Street analyst, Keith Snyder of the research firm CFRA, explained it like this: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered first, and Musk has certainly stuck out.” A nail worth $785 billion, hammered by a letter from a senator. My heart goes out to the hammer.

If a $113 billion shrug annoys you as much as it annoys me, add your name to the petition to make the super-rich pay. It takes less time than reading this paragraph.

Meanwhile, in Dhaka, tear gas for a $141 raise

The same week, garment workers near Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, walked out of at least 529 factories. They make clothes for the world on a minimum wage of 12,500 Bangladeshi taka a month, roughly $100. They asked for 30,000 taka, about $242, because food, rent and bus fares keep climbing.

Police in Ashulia met them with stun grenades and tear gas. The Home Minister warned that those behind “unlawful activities” would be “tackled with an iron hand”.

Musk’s bad Thursday would pay for 12 years of raises

Let’s do the sums, since nobody in a boardroom will. The gap between what they earn and what they asked for is about $141 a month. Give that rise to every one of the roughly 4 million people who work in the industry and it costs about $6.8 billion a year.

Musk’s bad Thursday alone would cover that raise for nearly 12 years, and his two-day wobble would cover it for more than 16.

One man lost money he never touches and went to bed rich. Four million people asked for $141 more a month and got tear gas.

MAKE THEM PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE:

Workers are winning from Dhaka to Paris

Then the Dhaka garment workers won the first round. Four days in, Bangladesh’s new wage board agreed to bring in a new pay structure from December, with the first new wages paid in January. The size of the rise is still to be fought over, and the workers have shown they know how to fight.

They’re in good company. In France, 1.57 million people struck on 5 November by the CGT union’s count, demanding a 10% rise in the minimum wage. In Spain, the two biggest unions strike for 24 hours this Wednesday over rents and wages, asking for pay rises of 4 to 7% and a cap on rents. In the Philippines, rice prices are up 20.7% on a year, and everyone queuing at the market can feel it.

From Dhaka to Paris to Madrid, the people who make things and move things are asking for their share. It’s the same fight that shut down the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle in 1999 and filled Zuccotti Park with Occupy Wall Street in 2011. Each time the press called them a rabble, and each time they moved the argument.

Can we really tax Musk’s paper billions?

Yes, and someone has already done the homework. Economist Gabriel Zucman worked it out for the G20, the group of the world’s 20 biggest economies. A 2% minimum tax on the world’s 3,000 or so billionaires would raise $200 to $250 billion a year. You’ll be told, as you always are, that Musk’s money is only on paper and taxing it is too complicated.

On Musk’s $785 billion, 2% is about $15.7 billion. He’d pay it and still be worth more than $770 billion. That’s enough to fund the Dhaka garment workers’ raise twice over, every year, with change left for the bus fare.

The loudest objections to a wealth tax tend to come from the small number of people who’d have to pay it.

So this one goes out to everyone who winced at the till this week. Your losses came out of rice, rent and bus fares, and no index tracked them. The garment workers of Dhaka showed what happens when people stop waiting for permission. Enough is enough.

That is where you come in. Add your name to make the super-rich pay their fair share and bring down the cost of living.

MAKE THEM PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE

It took one election result to knock $113 billion off the richest man alive. Let’s find out what a few million signatures can do.

Ed Pomfret, responsable de comunicación y medios de la Alianza para la Lucha contra la Desigualdad.

Ed Pomfret is Communications & Media Lead at Fight Inequality Alliance. He has spent more than 15 years running global campaigns, including leading Oxfam’s global campaigns across more than 80 countries.

MAKE THEM PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE AND BRING DOWN THE COST OF LIVING