2022 not only wreaked havoc on the wealth of share market investors but also caused a massive dip in the fortunes of the world’s super rich including Tesla boss Elon Musk and Amazon chief Jeff Bezos. With share markets reeling under pressure owing to the Russia-Ukraine war among several other factors, the world’s 500 richest people have together become poorer by $1.4 trillion in the first half of 2022.
This is the sharpest ever six-month drop in the global billionaires’ category. While the fortune of the world’s richest person and Tesla chief Musk tumbled nearly $62 billion, that of Amazon’s Bezos dropped by about $63 billion, according to a Bloomberg report.
Another billionaire Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth declined by over half. The biggest victim of this steepest ever six-month decline was crypto pioneer Changpeng Zhao, the founder and CEO of Binance. His fortune got reduced by a whopping $80 million in the first half of 2022. It may be noted here that Zhao first appeared on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in January with an estimated fortune of $96 billion.
Reasons behind the fall
The billionaires index cited the governments and central banks unleashed unprecedented stimulus measures in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, juicing the value of everything from tech companies to cryptocurrencies that hit their businesses, as the reasons behind this massive wealth dip.
With countries and governments hiking the interest rates to battle elevated inflation, highest-flying shares and the billionaires who own them are losing altitude fast, the report noted. Moreover, Tesla Inc had its worst quarter ever in the three months through June, the index showed.
Amazon.com Inc also plunged by the most since the dot-com bubble burst in the last 1990s.
According to the latest estimates of the Bloomberg Billionaires’ Index, Tesla boss Musk still has the biggest fortune on the planet, at $210 billion, followed by Amazon’s Bezos with a $133 billion net worth. The third richest man is France’s richest person Bernard Arnault with a $128 billion fortune, followed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates with $115 billion wealth.
