Tech slump erases over $130 billion from fortunes of world's wealthiest

The fortunes of the world's 500 richest people fell by $134 billion in a day due to the collapse of stocks.

Jeff Bezos’s net worth shrank by $15.2 billion on August 2, leading a wide-ranging slump that erased $134 billion from the fortunes of the 500 richest people in the world, Caliber.Az reports, citing foreign media.

Shares of Amazon.com Inc. slid 8.8% amid a broader market selloff, dropping Bezos’ net worth to $191.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. This one-day wipeout is his third-worst, trailing only April 4, 2019, when the Amazon co-founder’s wealth tumbled $36 billion following his divorce settlement, and April 29, 2022, when Amazon shares plunged 14%.

The Nasdaq 100 Index fell 2.4%, dragging down the fortunes of other tech billionaires, including Elon Musk and Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison, whose net worths were pared by $6.6 billion and $4.4 billion, respectively. Uncertainty over possible Federal Reserve rate cuts, as well as some high-profile earnings disappointments, have helped plunge the tech-heavy index into correction territory, wiping out more than $2 trillion in value in just over three weeks.

Investors have also become jittery over fears that this year’s AI-fueled gains are overdone or the market is too concentrated. The decline in Amazon shares — the biggest drop since April 2022 — came after the company said on an earnings call that it planned to continue spending big on AI, even at the expense of short-term profits.

Technology billionaires Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page also each lost more than $3 billion on August 2 as shares of Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet fell in New York trading. Tech tycoons in total saw $68 billion carved from their fortunes, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index.

Bezos, 60, the world’s second-richest person, has been steadily offloading Amazon shares this year. He sold stock worth about $8.5 billion over nine trading days in February. And on a day last month when Amazon hit a fresh record, he disclosed a plan to sell 25 million additional shares worth $5 billion.

The additional sales would bring his total this year to roughly $13.5 billion. He would still hold almost 912 million shares, or about 8.8% of Amazon, once those sales are complete. His wealth also derives from space-exploration company Blue Origin and the Washington Post.