The fortunes of three billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, fell by tens of billions of dollars on April 3, just one day after President Donald Trump announced new tariffs.
According to Bloomberg, the total wealth of the top 500 billionaires fell by a total of $ 208 billion. The event marked the fourth largest one-day decline since Bloomberg began tracking billionaire wealth 13 years ago and the worst since Covid 19. More than half of the billionaires saw their net worth decrease, with an average decline of 3.3%.
Most of the financial impact was in the US, with nine of the ten biggest losers being American billionaires. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg suffered the biggest loss, with his fortune falling $17.9 billion after Meta shares fell 9%. His fortune was just $189 billion after April 3.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also lost $15.9 billion to $201 billion as Amazon shares also fell 9%, marking the biggest drop since 2022.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and an active Trump supporter in the US presidential election earlier this year, lost $11 billion after Tesla shares fell 5.5%. He is now the third biggest loser after the tariff announcement. But his fortune after April 3 is still at the top with $322 billion.
According to statistics from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index after the April 4 trading session, the fortunes of billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos continued to decline, to $179 billion and $193 billion, respectively, falling out of the "$200 billion club". The fortune of the world's richest man, Elon Musk, fell to $302 billion.
Rounding out the top 10 billionaire losers were Michael Dell (down $9.53 billion), Larry Ellison ($8.1 billion), Jensen Huang ($7.36 billion), Bernard Arnault ($6.22 billion), Larry Page ($4.79 billion), Sergey Brin ($4.46 billion) and Thomas Peterffy ($4.06 billion).
The massive sell-off in the stock market on April 4 was described as a “bloodbath,” as many investors reacted to concerns that new tariffs could harm global trade and economic growth.