World’s richest lose $134 billion as stocks fall

Jeff Bezos’ net worth fell by $15.2 billion on Friday, triggering a deep crisis that saw the fortunes of the 500 richest people in the world drop by $134 billion.

Amazon.com Inc. shares fell 8.8 percent amid a broader market sell-off, pushing Bezos’ net worth to $191.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The one-day drop is his third-worst, trailing only April 4, 2019, when the Amazon co-founder’s net worth fell $36 billion following his divorce settlement, and April 29, 2022, when Amazon shares fell 14 percent.

The Nasdaq 100 Index fell 2.4 percent, dragging down the fortunes of other tech billionaires, including Elon Musk and Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison, whose net worth fell by $6.6 billion and $4.4 billion, respectively. Uncertainty over possible Federal Reserve rate cuts, as well as some high-profile earnings disappointments, helped plunge the tech index into correction territory, erasing more than $2 trillion in value in just three weeks.

Investors have also grown nervous on concerns that this year’s AI-driven gains are overblown or the market is too concentrated. Amazon’s shares fell — their biggest drop since April 2022 — after the company said on an earnings conference call that it plans to continue spending heavily on AI, even at the expense of near-term gains.

Tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and Larry Page also lost more than $3 billion each on Friday, as shares of Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet fell in New York. The tech tycoons lost a combined $68 billion of their wealth, according to the Bloomberg Wealth Index.

Bezos, 60, the world’s second-richest person, has been steadily selling Amazon stock this year. He sold about $8.5 billion worth of shares over nine trading days in February. And on the day last month that Amazon hit a new record, he revealed plans to sell 25 million additional shares, worth $5 billion.

The additional sale would give him about $13.5 billion this year, according to Bloomberg calculations. He will still own nearly 912 million shares, or about 8.8 percent of Amazon, after the sale is complete.

His wealth also comes from space exploration company Blue Origin and the Washington Post newspaper.