Billionaires at Trump’s swearing-in have since lost US$209 billion
The companies behind the inauguration attendees’ fortunes have been some of the biggest losers, dropping a combined US$1.39 trillion in market value since Jan 17
[NEW YORK] As Donald Trump took the oath of office on Jan 20, he was flanked by some of the world’s wealthiest people. The billionaires present that day – including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg – had never been richer, flush with big gains from frothy stock markets.
Seven weeks later, it’s a different story. The start of Trump’s second term has delivered a stunning reversal for many of those billionaires sitting behind Trump in the Capitol Rotunda, with five having lost a combined US$209 billion in wealth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The period between Trump’s election and his inauguration was a boon for the world’s wealthiest, with the S&P 500 Index hitting several all-time highs. Investors piled into equity and crypto markets, expecting that Trump’s policies would be advantageous to business.
Musk’s Tesla gained 98 per cent in the weeks after the election, hitting a record high. Arnault’s LVMH added 7 per cent in the week before Inauguration Day, making the French magnate US$12 billion richer. Even Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms, which banned Trump from the social media platform in 2021, gained 9 per cent before the beginning of the new term and an additional 20 per cent in his first four weeks in office.
But any expectations that the start of Trump’s new term would continue to fuel market returns have been upended. The S&P 500 has lost 6.4 per cent since he took office, as mass layoffs of government employees and the president’s back-and-forth on tariffs have roiled equities, with the benchmark index tumbling 2.7 per cent on Monday (Mar 10).
The companies behind the inauguration attendees’ fortunes have been some of the biggest losers, dropping a combined US$1.39 trillion in market value since Jan 17, the last trading day before the inauguration.
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Here’s a look at some of those fortunes:
Elon Musk (down US$148 billion)
The 53-year-old Tesla chief executive officer’s net worth peaked at US$486 billion on Dec 17, the largest fortune ever recorded on Bloomberg’s wealth index. Most of his gains came from Tesla, whose stock nearly doubled after the election. Since then, the electric carmaker has given up all of those gains.
Consumers in Europe have soured on Musk’s support for far-right politicians, with Tesla sales in Germany falling by more than 70 per cent in the first two months of the year. Chinese shipments also fell by 49 per cent last month to levels not seen since July 2022.
Jeff Bezos (down US$29 billion)
Bezos, 61, who clashed with Trump over the postal service and his ownership of the Washington Post during the president’s first term, congratulated Trump the day after the election on Musk’s X social-media platform.
Amazon donated US$1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund in December, and Bezos dined with the president last month, the same day that Bezos announced that his newspaper will prioritise personal liberties and free markets in its opinion section. Amazon shares have fallen 14 per cent since Jan 17.
Sergey Brin (down US$22 billion)
Brin, 51, who co-founded the company then known as Google with Larry Page and still retains a 6 per cent stake, joined a protest against the Trump administration’s immigration policy at the San Francisco airport in 2017. After Trump was re-elected in November, Brin dined with him at Mar-a-Lago the following month.
Alphabet’s shares tumbled more than 7 per cent in early February after it missed quarterly revenue estimates. Representatives from Alphabet, which is currently facing pressure from the Justice Department to break up its search engine company, last week met with the government and asked it to take a less aggressive stance.
Mark Zuckerberg (down US$5 billion)
Meta was the standout winner among the Magnificent Seven tech stocks at the beginning of this year. Even as the group of companies that has powered much of the S&P 500’s gains over the past few years were flatlining, Meta rose 19 per cent from mid-January to mid-February.
Since then, though, the stock has lost all those gains. The Magnificent Seven index is down 20 per cent since its mid-December high.
Bernard Arnault (down US$5 billion)
Arnault, 76, whose family owns the luxury conglomerate behind brands including Louis Vuitton and Bulgari, has been a friend of Trump’s for decades, speaking with the then-candidate the day after the Pennsylvania assassination attempt in July.
After declining to most of 2024, LVMH jumped more than 20 per cent from the election to late January. It’s since given up most of those gains. Morningstar analysts said last month that a 10 to 20 per cent tariff on European luxury goods could depress sales, which have already been struggling. BLOOMBERG
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