The stock market crash of the American technology giants has cost tens of billions of dollars in 2022 to the greatest fortunes on the planet. Here is the list of billionaires who have lost the most dollars this year:
Elon Musk
Long at the top of the ranking of the richest people on Earth, Elon Musk, the head of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, gave up first place in favor of French luxury magnate Bernard Arnault, head of LVMH.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Elon Musk has lost $140 billion since January and is still holding on to a tidy $130 billion.
The evaporation of more than half of his fortune is mainly due to the fall of Tesla on Wall Street (-69% in 2022 as of December 28).
Previously spoiled by investors, the electric vehicle manufacturer’s stock has not stopped sinking on the stock market since Musk’s takeover of Twitter at the end of October for 44,000 million dollars.
From the dismissal of more than half of the Twitter workforce to the return of Donald Trump to the social network, the stormy businessman’s first months at the head of the platform were marred by multiple controversies.
mark zuckerberg
The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has redoubled his efforts to promote the metaverse, that virtual world presented as the future of the Internet by its promoters.
For now, investors are far from convinced, as evidenced by the plunge in shares of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which has fallen 65.5% since the start of the year.
Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune has shrunk from $81 billion to $44.4 billion.
Highly dependent on advertising revenue, Meta also suffered in this sector, in a context of global inflation and increased competition.
Jeff Bezos
Since stepping down as Amazon CEO in July 2021, Jeff Bezos has devoted much of his time to space exploration through his company Blue Origin.
However, his wealth remains tightly tied to the value of the e-commerce giant’s shares, which have fallen more than 51% in 2022.
Jeff Bezos, who serves as chief executive of Amazon’s board of directors, has lost more than $86 billion this year. His fortune is estimated at $106 billion.
The 58-year-old businessman, owner of the US newspaper The Washington Post, told CNN in November that he intended to donate most of his wealth to charity during his lifetime.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin
The two founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are no longer at the helm of the company since they left their management roles in 2019 within the parent company Alphabet, which also owns YouTube or the Gmail electronic messaging service.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, however, remain members of Alphabet’s board of directors, of which they are the largest individual shareholders.
The 40.5% drop since January in shares of Alphabet, which has suffered from falling advertising revenue and faces rivals such as TikTok in the entertainment segment, has hit the fortunes of the two men.
Larry Page’s fell $46.100 million and Mr. Brin’s $44.800 million.
With 82,300 and 78,800 million dollars respectively, they are nevertheless the tenth and eleventh richest people on the planet.
zhang yiming
Chinese billionaire Zhang Yiming is an exception in this technological debacle.
The fortune of the owner of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, increased by $10.4 billion in 2022 to $55 billion, making him the 23rd richest person in the world.
But TikTok is in the crosshairs of US authorities, concerned about possible links between the popular video-sharing app and Beijing.
The Biden administration has approved banning TikTok on the phones of federal employees and could force ByteDance to sell the US version of the app.
Source: BFM TV
