As gloomy earnings reports left tech stocks reeling last week, the fortune of company founders saw the shedding of billions. A group of tech billionaires have collectively lost nearly half a trillion dollars this year in the midst of high inflation and rising interest rates.
According to the Bloomberg index, Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) chief Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates, and Oracle Corporation’s (NYSE:ORCL) Larry Ellison have collectively lost $480 billion in paper wealth this year.
Zuckerberg’s net worth fell by $11.2 billion after Meta’s disappointing earnings reports. The company’s revenue went into the red for the second consecutive quarter.
Also Read: Here’s What World’s Richest Crypto Billionaire Has To Say About Tesla Dumping Bitcoin
Zuckerberg’s total wealth accumulation has fallen by more than $87 billion this year. He currently has a net worth of around $37.7 billion, a 73% fall from the $142 billion peak in September 2021.
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) chief Elon Musk and Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) Chairman Jeff Bezos have each seen more than $58 billion of wealth lost this year.
With rising inflation, consumer discretionary stocks tend to perform poorly. For example, the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary constituents are down 31% since the beginning of 2022, compared to the S&P 500, which is down 18.21%.
While Musk is currently worth of $212 billion, Bezos’ total wealth is valued at $134 billion.
Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have lost more than $40 billion in paper wealth this year.
Looking outside the U.S., China’s Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), has lost $9.3 billion in wealth this year. Currently, he has a net worth of $29.1 billion.
Photo: Created with images from Oracle PR, Anthony Quintano, and Red Maxwell
