It’s intriguing that some poop-dropping bats, along with tasty raw snakes and adventurous diners in Wuhan could have threatened the world with a Great Depression that was averted. But it all led to a global lockdown, a stock market crash, record low interest rates, followed by surging inflation and then a rapid rise in interest rates.

And one of the big casualties of the strange eating in China has been tech companies, whose stock prices have been smashed, such that the Bloomberg reports that Tesla’s “Elon Musk’s losses for 2022 have topped $US100 billion ($151.4 billion) as shares of Tesla dropped to the lowest level in two years.”

But Musk is not alone, with the likes of our own homegrown billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes losing billions, as the share price of his Atlassian tumbled with other tech stocks.

This is how The Australian’s David Swan reported a big fall on November 25: “Shares in Australian software giant Atlassian slumped by more than 20 per cent in after hours trading on Friday, wiping billions from the company’s valuation and the net worth of its co-CEOs Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar in minutes, after the company swung to an annual operating loss and posted earnings and revenue that missed market expectations.

“Atlassian shares, which are listed on the US Nasdaq, dropped by as much as 25 per cent after that market closed on Friday morning (AEDT), and were last 22.6 per cent to $US134.73, suggesting a loss of nearly $US10bn from the company’s valuation.”

Atlassian (TEAM)

Atlassian’s share price is down 71% over the past year that has to hurt, even for a billionaire!

The Elon Musk story of relative ‘impoverishment’ starts with the fact that he still remains the world’s richest person, with a fortune worth $US170 billion, despite losing $US101 billion this year, if we can believe the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.

The daily loss this year works out to be around $470 million so far!

The Tesla share price is down 58% year-to-date, while the Nasdaq Index is off only 30%, as his company experiences more competition from other electric vehicle makers, 300,000 cars were recalled because of faulty taillights and the company was a big holder of bitcoin.

Meanwhile, Musk himself has been distracted by his foray into Twitter, which cost him $US44 billion and Bloomberg says “the company has lost about 60 per cent of its workforce since Musk took over, with the latest round of layoffs coming on Sunday.”

Interestingly, Bloomberg says Musk is spreading the pain of the tech wreck for companies like his Tesla and Twitter by asking his staff to share the impact of this bad year for cutting edge businesses.

“Last Thursday, hundreds of Twitter employees decided to depart with three months of severance pay, sources with knowledge of the situation said, following an ultimatum from new owner Elon Musk that staffers sign up for “long hours at high intensity”, or leave,” Nur Dayana Mustak revealed.

Some question whether Twitter will survive this exodus but normal people don’t understand wild and weird people like Elon Musk and what they can achieve, even if the market is currently marking his companies and him down.

Don’t forget he still has $170 billion in his kick and when tech companies rebound over 2023, this billionaire won’t be asking if you can spare a billion?