The word צַלְמ֔וֹ is possessive - his tzelem.
Whose?
Is it the tzelem Elokim? That would make the entire next clause, בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹקים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ, redundant.
R' Aharon Soloveitchik in his sefer on chumash explains (see Ibn Ezra and Ohr haChaim) that the tzelem of בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ means the tzelem of man himself. Tzelem is the purpose for which every individual is created. It's not by chance that you were put in the world in a particular time and a particular place and given particular abilities. Hashem put you there and gave you the talents you have because that is exactly what you need to fulfill your purpose in creation -- to live up to your tzelem.
Rav Kook makes the same point on the words we said in viduy: עד שלא נוצרתי איני כדאי, ועכשיו שנוצרתי כאלו לא נוצרתי. Before this time and place in history, איני כדאי, there was no need for your neshoma or my neshoma to come into the world. Now that we are here, עכשיו שנוצרתי, we say viduy and bemoan the fact that in this particular moment in time and space that beckons for our creation and which gives out life purpose, כאלו לא נוצרתי, we fail to live up to who we should be, to the tzelem for which we are created.
If you have the time for it there is a wonderful talk from R' Mordechai Greenberg of Kerem b'Yavneh which captures this idea, among others:
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