Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk Lead World’s Richest People Who Lost $134 Billion in a Single Day

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, the founders of Amazon and Tesla, were the biggest losers in the 24-hour crisis, which saw the world’s richest people lose a combined $134 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.

Bezos, 60, saw his net worth fall by $15.2 billion on Friday as a broader market sell-off wiped $134 billion off the wealth of the world’s 500 richest people.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk also suffered a significant loss, with his net worth decreasing by $6.6 billion.

Amazon shares fell 8.8%, sending Bezos’ net worth to $191.5 billion. The one-day loss is one of the largest of Bezos’ career, topped only by a $36 billion haircut following his 2019 divorce settlement and a 14% drop in Amazon shares in April 2022.

Bezos’s decline in wealth is part of a broader sell-off in the technology sector, with the Nasdaq 100 Index down 2.4%. The decline has weighed heavily on other tech tycoons, including Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison, whose net worth fell by $4.4 billion.

The market turmoil was fueled by concerns about potential Federal Reserve rate cuts and disappointing earnings reports, which caused a correction in the tech stock index and a loss of more than $2 trillion in just three weeks.

Investor sentiment was also weighed on by concerns that the rapid gains in artificial intelligence (AI) stocks this year may have been overdone, leading to worries that the market is too concentrated. Amazon shares fell to their steepest point since April 2022 after an earnings conference call in which the company announced ongoing heavy investments in AI, even at the expense of near-term profitability.

Tech billionaires see $68 billion in wealth wiped out

Other tech billionaires, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta Platforms Inc. and Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Alphabet, also saw their net worth drop significantly, each losing more than $3 billion on Friday.

According to the Bloomberg Wealth Index, tech tycoons’ fortunes have collectively lost $68 billion.

Bezos, who at 60 remains the second-richest person in the world, has been actively selling Amazon shares throughout the year.

In February, he sold shares worth about $8.5 billion. more than nine trading days. In addition, Bezos revealed plans to sell another 25 million shares worth $5 billion after Amazon recently hit a new record. These planned sales will bring his total sales this year to about $13.5 billion, leaving him with nearly 912 million shares, or about 8.8% of Amazon.

Besides Amazon, Bezos’s wealth is also tied up in his space exploration company, Blue Origin, and the Washington Post, which he owns. The recent market volatility underscores the vulnerability of even the wealthiest individuals to broader economic and market forces, particularly in the technology sector, which has seen both extraordinary gains and significant corrections this year.