Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lost $20 billion of his wealth. Binance’s Changpeng Zhao assets went down by $17.7 billion, while Mark Zuckerberg’s riches dropped by $10.4 billion.
The decline came as the US Federal Reserve adjusted interest rates in response to rising inflation. Bloomberg reported that tech billionaires were the most affected as cryptocurrency prices, e-commerce, and online gaming toppled.
Jeff Bezos lost $20 Billion: Who Lost and Won
The cryptocurrency was one of the biggest victims, with bitcoin dropping to six-month lows and other digital assets badly affected. Changpeng Zhao is the founder of cryptocurrency platform Binance. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zhao, who is now worth $75 billion, lost nearly $18 billion.
Elon Musk, Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO and the world’s richest person, lost nearly 10 percent of his net worth.
According to Bloomberg, Bernard Arnault was the only one of the world’s five wealthiest people whose fortune remained intact. Even so, the assets of the chairman and CEO of the luxury fashion brand LVMH dropped by $10.5 this year. Arnault is on the verge of re-taking the number two spot in the Bloomberg index from Bezos.
The world’s five wealthiest tech tycoons have collectively lost almost $85 billion of their fortune in the first few weeks of 2002.
The new list of the world’s wealthiest people according to the recent Bloomberg Billionaires Index is now as follows:
1. Elon Musk with $243 billion
2. Jeff Bezos with $168 billion
3. Bernard Arnault with 167 billion
4. Bill Gates with $129 billion
5. Larry Page with $117 billion
6. Mark Zuckerberg with $113 billion.
Of course, all of them still have more money than we regular folks can visualize. But the drops in wealth may still put a dent in their future development plans. Will they be able to recover their deficits in 2022? Well, only time will tell.
US stock sell-off deepens
The US stock market plunges on Friday as investors worry about the Federal Reserve, rising inflations, interest rate increases, and disappointing earnings.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was severely hit after being dragged by the Netflix streaming platform.
Netflix plunged more than 20 percent after a disappointing subscriber outlook. Netflix had lost about 16%, along with a broader sell-off in tech stocks. The firm benefitted from a low-interest-rate environment during the coronavirus pandemic.
Peloton, meanwhile, staged a rebound Friday to climb over 10% after a 24% slump in the previous session. The high-end exercise equipment maker acknowledged plans to adjust production to meet lower demand.
US equities as a whole have been shaken in early 2022 by the hope that the Fed will repeatedly hike rates and bounce back the central bank’s massive support of the US economy through the pandemic.
In cryptocurrencies, prices have tremendously dropped. Bitcoin, in particular, plunged as much as 10% to a six-month low below $38,000 while ether dropped to under $3,000.
Meanwhile, Gold slipped 0.48% to $1,830.26 per ounce.
On the other hand, oil slightly went lower though prices are still near the highest level since late 2014. For example, the West Texas Intermediate crude oil reduced by 0.71% to $84.94 per barrel. Brent crude, oil’s international benchmark, plummeted by 0.87% to $87.61 per barrel as solid oil demand outstripped global supply.
JPMorgan said Brent could rise to $150 a barrel during the first quarter of 2022 if the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine leads to a supply shock.
