The fortunes of America’s richest billionaires tumbled on Tuesday by $93 billion, the ninth-worst daily loss ever, as hotter-than-expected US inflation data roiled markets.
Jeff Bezos’s wealth plunged by $9.8 billion, the most among those tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Elon Musk’s net worth dropped by $8.4 billion. The fortunes of Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Steve Ballmer all declined by more than $4 billion, while Warren Buffett and Bill Gates lost $3.4 billion and $2.8 billion, respectively.
Billionaires' Bad Day | Higher-than-expected inflation data erases billions from top US fortunes
The billionaires’ large daily losses reflect the broad selloff in the US stock market, as investors bet that consumer price index data that came in higher than expected will cause the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates more aggressively. The S&P 500 fell 4.4%, the most since June 2020, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index tumbled 5.5%, the most since a decline of more than 12% in March 2020.
It’s the latest in a series of rough days this year for the markets and for billionaires’ fortunes. Just last month, the same group of US billionaires lost $78 billion in a day after an eight-minute speech from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Overall, the world’s 500 richest people are worth about $1.2 trillion less than they were at the start of the year. Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., has lost $68.3 billion, or about 54% of his fortune, while Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is down $61 billion, or about 64%.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
