Only one of the world’s 10 richest people avoided losing money this week
The likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have lost billions of dollars in the past week as a result of tumbling tech stocks and a crypto plummet.
In what was the worst week for the stock market since the crash at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, stocks in chipmakers struggled and Netflix suffered its steepest share drop in a decade.
According to Bloomberg, Musk saw his net worth drop by $25.1bn – or more than 9% – this week. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos lost an estimated $20bn from his fortune, with Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth falling by more than $10bn.
At Friday’s close of trading, the tech-focused stock exchange Nasdaq was down 7.6 percent for the week. Not only was this the fourth successive weekly drop for the index, but it was also its biggest decline since March 2020.
And the crypto market has struggled as well, with bitcoin hitting a six month low.
Over the past week, the price of bitcoin has fallen by 16.8 percent, whilst ethereum is down by 25 percent. The overall crypto plummet has seen an estimated $1 trillion wiped off the market.
After hitting a record high of almost $68,000 (£50,000) in November, bitcoin is now worth under $35,000.
Despite the hit to his wealth though, Tesla founder Musk still leads the pack of the world’s wealthiest people by an enormous margin, with a total fortune of $243.4bn.
Amazon founder Bezos sits in second with wealth totalling $167.6bn. In third is French luxury retail tycoon Bernard Arnault, with $167.5bn.
But as the only person in the top ten to not lose any net worth in the past week, Arnault looks set to overtake Bezos in the rich list chart.
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