By Ramishah Maruf, CNN

New York (CNN) — Elon Musk has lost $52 billion in net worth since the year began, but he’s still the richest person in the world by a long shot, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Shares of Musk’s Tesla dropped 8% before market close Tuesday after a steady decrease of more than 20% over the past month. Tesla’s market value dropped below $1 trillion for the first time since November 2024.

Tesla sales are in an unprecedented slide, and the company’s sales dropped 45% last month across Europe despite the popularity of electric vehicles there, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. And though Musk is a deeply polarizing figure, it’s not clear that his politics are playing a major role in Tesla’s sales slump. Growing competition, especially in China, and sinking demand growth in the United States are playing a major role in Tesla’s slump this year.

Nevertheless, Tesla’s stock slide represents a stark change in investors’ attitudes from November 2024, right after Donald Trump won the US presidential election. Musk had never been richer, with his net worth hitting a record $347.8 billion, Bloomberg reported, after a steady rally for Tesla.

Investors believed that Musk’s influence in the Trump administration would usher in an era of deregulation that will benefit the company. Musk, Tesla’s largest individual shareholder, was roughly $83 billion richer since Election Day by the end of November.

Steve Man, global lead director for auto and industrial market research at Bloomberg Intelligence, told CNN over email that Tesla could still “thrive beyond the noise.”

Musk’s “political maneuvers steer headlines and spark backlash in parts of the consumer base, but the company continue to drive cutting-edge tech with ambition to build a loyal fanbase,” he said.

Musk’s alliance with Trump pushed his ventures to the forefront. Musk is the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as the owner of X and the CEO of other ventures, including Neuralink, xAI and the Boring Company. He now oversees the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and has made a number of controversial job cuts and downsizing in the federal government, including thousands of layoffs across agencies.

Musk’s net worth dropped $5.2 billion this past week, according to the latest update to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index. He’s still the richest person in the world with a net worth of $380 billion — a whopping $144 billion richer than the second-richest person in the world, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

CNN’s Matt Egan contributed to this report.

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