Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos. Sergey Brin. Mark Zuckerberg. Bernard Arnault.
They’re among the world’s richest people, and they all attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration. And now, they’ve lost a collective $209 billion since the Republican took office, Bloomberg reports.
Musk’s net worth suffered the most, dropping by $148 billion since January 20. Amazon CEO Bezos came in second place, losing $29 billion, while Google co-founder Brin lost $22 billion. Meta CEO Zuckerberg and LVMH CEO Arnault both said goodbye to $5 billion.
Musk — who owns both SpaceX and Tesla — saw his net worth peak in December at a whopping $486 billion, the highest-ever recorded by the Bloomberg wealth index. Musk used nearly $300 million of his fortune to support Trump’s presidential campaign and other MAGA allies throughout 2024.
Musk’s net worth spike mostly came from Tesla’s significant gains, which have since been lost, Bloomberg reports. Bezos’s drop can similarly be attributed to a 14 percent fall in Amazon shares since January.
Brin’s fall comes as shares of Alphabet Inc. — Google’s parent company — tumbled more than 7 percent early last month.
Zuckerberg, meanwhile, was initially poised to have a good first quarter after Meta rose 19 percent from mid-January to mid-February — however, the stock has since lost those gains. Arnault’s LVMH similarly saw a 20 percent spike from early November to late January, but those gains have since been lost.
The Independent has contacted the five billionaires for comment through their respective companies.
These billionaires’ losses come as the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost almost 900 points Monday. The Dow closed at a loss of 890, but was initially heading toward its worst day since 2022 amid Trump’s trade wars.
At one point Monday, the Dow was down 1,000 points, which would have put it in the top 20 worst days in market history. Musk’s Tesla lost 15 percent, while shares of Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon.com, Nvidia and Meta Platforms fell more than 3 percent. On Tuesday the markets continued to slide, briefly pulling Wall Street 10% below its record set last month.
Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has appeared unphased by the drop, telling NBC News: “There’s going to be no recession in America.”
But outside experts are not ruling it out. JPMorgan Chase raised their risk of recession from 30 to 40 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal. Mark Zandi, chief economist at credit rating agency Moody’s, previously told The Independent that “Americans should be worried” about the economy as Trump implements his tariffs.
“There are a lot of storms out there and they’re getting darker and darker,” Zandi said.
