Billionaires poised to lose near half-trillion dollars in 2 days
The world's 500 richest people suffered the biggest two-day loss ever on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as fallout from President Donald Trump's tariff announcement decimated markets across the globe.
Billionaires on the wealth list lost a collective $536 billion from Thursday's stock market open to Friday's close as the S&P 500 Index dropped 10.5% over the two days and the Nasdaq Composite fell 11.4%.
Friday's $329 billion drop was the largest since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, swamping Thursday's $208 billion slide. Almost 90% of the billionaires tracked by the wealth index saw their fortunes fall Friday, with an average decline of 3.5%.
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No one lost more over the two-day stretch than Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk. The carmaker's stock plunged more than 10% Friday, dragging Musk's net worth down $31 billion from Thursday's open and bringing his yearly losses to $130 billion. Meta Platforms Inc. founder Mark Zuckerberg followed with a $27 billion loss as the social media company dropped almost 14% over the two-day stretch. Carvana Co. CEO Ernest Garcia III's two-day loss of $2 billion was enough to push him off the list of the world's 500 richest people. His used-car retailer's stock lost 28% over the period.
Nike Inc. founder Phil Knight was one of few winners on Friday. The shoe company's stock gained 2.8% after Trump said that he'd had a "very productive call" with Vietnamese leader To Lam over possibly eliminating a 46% tariff unveiled yesterday on the Southeast Asian country, where much of Nike's manufacturing is done. The stock's rise added $84 million to Knight's net worth on the day, reversing Thursday's $3 billion loss.
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim fared opposite. The mogul behind mobile-phone operator America Movil SAB narrowly was in the black Thursday as Mexico's exclusion from the White House's list of tariff targets pushed the country's main index up slightly. On Friday, though, Slim reversed those gains and then some, losing $5.5 billion as the Mexican Bolsa fell 4.9%.
