Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX Or Dogecoin: Which Musk-Associated Asset Saw Highest Value Growth In 2023?

ZINGER KEY POINTS

• A look at the returns of Tesla stock and Dogecoin in 2023 along with private company valuations of SpaceX and Twitter.

• The four items all connect to Elon Musk, the world's richest person.

As 2023 draws to a close, it has been a remarkable year for many, especially for billionaire Elon Musk. The Tesla Inc TSLA-2.52% Get Free Report

 CEO accomplished many things in 2023 including watching his electric vehicle company complete the first deliveries of the Cybertruck.

Here's a look back at how several Musk-related investments performed in 2023.

What Happened: Musk retook the position of the world's richest person in February and again in May after being passed in 2022 and briefly in 2023 by Bernard Arnault.

Today, Musk is worth $235 billion, which is up $97.8 billion from 2022. Musk's wealth has risen thanks to the soaring valuation of Tesla and SpaceX, the two largest components of his personal wealth.

Musk also acquired Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and watched the valuation of the company marked down in 2023 by several of the investors in the go-private transaction.

Dogecoin DOGE/USD-3.57%+ Free Alerts, Musk's favorite cryptocurrency, gained in value in 2023 as the cryptocurrency sector rebounded from a down 2022 that saw several companies in the sector go bankrupt.

2023 Valuations: SpaceX was recently valued at $180 billion in a tender offer, which makes the company the second most valuable private company, trailing only TikTok owner ByteDance ($225 billion). The valuation of the space company increased several times in 2023 going from $137 billion in January to $150 billion in July and $180 billion today.

SpaceX was valued at $127 billion in May 2022.

Twitter, now known as X, was taken private at a valuation of $44 billion. The company has not raised money since going private, and the valuation of the company is harder to track.

Benzinga previously reported that Fidelity shares its valuation of Twitter each month based on its holdings of the company in several mutual funds. Fidelity valued Twitter at a 68% discount in a December report, which tracked the valuation back to October. The discount came after Fidelity had increased the valuation of Twitter in June, July and August.

Dogecoin began 2023 trading at $0.070287. The cryptocurrency remains a favorite of Musk, and some crypto experts believe the integration of payments into Twitter could help boost the future valuation of the meme crypto.

Here's the 2023 scorecard, based on prices from Dec. 27, 2023:

• Tesla stock: +142.0%

• Dogecoin: +33.0%

• SpaceX: +41.7%

• Twitter: -68.1%

While Twitter's valuation is down in 2023, it comes mostly from one investor and is not a consensus. The value drop on Twitter is more than offset by the gains in Tesla, Dogecoin and SpaceX. Investors who have followed Musk were pleasantly rewarded in 2023.

For comparison, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, which tracks the S&P 500 Index, was up 25.1% over the same time period. This means an investment in either Tesla, Dogecoin or SpaceX would have outperformed the overall stock market.

The average return of the four Musk related investments is up 37.2%, which beat the market as well.