The richest man in the world is now $34 billion poorer and other billionaires have also taken a hit to their personal wealth in recent days.
Billionaires have taken a hit in recent days after stocks tumbled on news that the US Federal Reserve plans to raise interest rates.
The country’s central bank is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter of a percent in March to halt runaway inflation. They should confirm the news soon.
It caused the biggest drop in the stock market since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020.
Nowhere was that more evident than in the hip pocket of tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Although Mr Musk is still the richest man in the world, his fortunes have plummeted after a week of stock market horror for Tesla.
A whopping US$25 billion (AUD$34 billion) was wiped off his personal net worth in just seven days, representing an overall decline of over 9%.
Other wealthy advertisers were also feeling the stock market crisis.
Bloomberg’s analysis found that the top five tech billionaires have collectively lost US$67 billion (A$93 billion) in the past seven days.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lost $20 billion (A$27 billion) last week, just shy of Musk’s $25 billion.
Meanwhile, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg lost $10.4 billion (A$14.4 billion), Google’s Larry Page saw $7.6 billion (A$10.5 billion ) wiped out of his personal finances and Microsoft boss Bill Gates lost $4.3 billion (A$6 billion).
Cryptocurrency was also not spared from the market blow.
Although they are supposed to stay safe from the woes of traditional investments like inflation, crypto investors are spooked after seeing the traditional stock market plummet.
It sparked a panicked sell-off that saw a whopping US$1.4 trillion (A$1.9 billion) wiped out the market in just two months since its combined market cap of $3 trillion last November.
Changpeng Zhao, the boss of cryptocurrency token Binance, saw his wealth plummet by $17.7 billion in the past few days.
Despite this blow to his fortunes, Mr. Musk still largely dominates the global rich list.
At its peak in early November last year, Mr Musk’s immense wealth was worth an estimated US$306.4 billion (A$423 billion) – the first person in world history to cross the bar 300 billion dollars.
The most recent version of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index puts him with an estimated wealth of US$243 billion (A$338 billion), a loss of US$63 billion.
However, that’s still a far cry from the second-richest person, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, sitting on $168 billion.
It is not the first time that Mr. Musk’s fortune has been damaged in recent months.
He had previously lost $50 billion in personal wealth in two days after a risque tweet drew negative attention.
Tesla’s stock price fell 3% on Nov. 10, down $199 billion, on fears Musk might sell 10% of his own shares. sell 10 percent of its large holdings.
In a Twitter poll, the Tesla CEO asked his 62.6 million followers if he should sell 10% of his stock and people were worried about whether he actually would.
Mr. Musk is so rich he had to shell out our $15 billion in taxes last year.
A report also revealed that just 2% of his fortune could end world hunger for a year.