Investors are feeling the effects of new inflation data and hiked interest rates that hit US markets this week — and the richest people in the world are not immune.
Gareth Cattermole/Getty ImagesAccording to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, the world’s top five richest billionaires lost a combined $25 billion in net worth during Tuesday’s market plunge.
It was the lowest one-day drop the stock market has seen since June 2020.
Jeff Bezos saw the biggest drop-off of the five men, losing an estimated $9.8 billion in his net worth, followed by rival and Tesla CEO Elon Musk who stood to lose $8.4 billion at the same time.
Data from Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index as of Wednesday afternoon.
LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault lost around $4.06 billion of net worth, followed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates whose fortune dropped by a cool $2.8 billion.
Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates share a laugh in 2001. (STAN HONDA/AFP via Getty Images)
The only billionaire whose net worth did not drop (an actually increased by $1.58 billion) was the now-third richest man in the world, Indian billionaire, Gautam Adani.
Bloomberg reported that the world’s 500 richest people have lost a combined estimated net worth of $1.2 trillion since January 2022, one of the biggest losses being Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg who has lost an estimated 54% ($68.3 billion) of his earnings.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the DOW was relatively flat (down 0.10% from yesterday) as was the S&P, up 0.083% at the same time.
