The S&P 500 posted its worst first half to a year since 1970. The sharp declines for many publicly traded companies sent the net worth of the world’s richest billionaires down to start the year. Here’s how much wealth the top 10 richest people lost.
What Happened: The 500 richest people in the world lost a combined $1.4 trillion in the first half of 2022, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
Here’s a look at how the top 10 fared:
- Elon Musk, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO: lost $61.8 billion, now worth $208 billion
- Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder: lost $62.7 billion, now worth $130 billion
- Bernard Arnault, LVMH CEO: Lost $49.3 billion, now worth $129 billion
- Bill Gates, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) co-founder: lost $23.4 billion, now worth $115 billion
- Larry Page, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL) co-founder: lost $29 billion, now worth $99.4 billion
- Gautam Adani, Adani Group founder: gained $22.1 billion, now worth $98.6 billion
- Sergey Brin, Alphabet Inc co-founder: lost $28.3 billion, now worth $95.3 billion.
- Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE: BRK-A)(NYSE: BRK-B) CEO: lost $14.1 billion, now worth $94.8 billion
- Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries Chairman: gained $3.1 billion, now worth $93.0 billion
- Steve Ballmer, Microsoft co-founder: lost $14.6 billion, now worth $91.1 billion
Collectively, the top 10 richest people in the world saw their wealth drop $258 billion, for an average decline of $25.8 billion. Only Adani and Ambani saw their wealth increase in the first half of 2022.
The start of 2022 had 10 billionaires with wealth over $100 billion. Only four people were worth $100 billion or more to start the second half of 2022.
Tesla shares dropped over 43% in the first half of the year, sending Musk’s wealth, which is heavily tied to the electric vehicle company, down significantly.
Amazon shares fell over 30% in the first half of the year, sending Bezos’ wealth down dramatically in the first half of the year.
Related Link: S&P 500 Posts Worst First Half Loss Since 1970: What It Means And What Could Be Next
Outside the Top Ten: Outside of the top 10, several billionaires added to their wealth in the first half of 2022 with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, Charles Koch, the Wertheimer families and Ferrero families seeing gains in the first half of the year.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw his wealth cut by more than 50% losing $65.5 billion in the first half to end the month of June worth $60 billion.
Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who made his debut on the Bloomberg Billionaires list in January, lost $79.8 billion in wealth in the first half of 2022. Zhao is now listed with a wealth of $16.2 billion.
Photo: Created with images from Steve Jurvetson, National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution and Anthony Quintano on Flickr
