World’s richest lose US$134 billion in stock slump, led by Jeff Bezos
JEFF Bezos’s net worth shrank by US$15.2 billion on Friday (Aug 2), leading a wide-ranging slump that erased US$134 billion from the fortunes of the 500 richest people in the world.
Shares of Amazon.com slid 8.8 per cent amid a broader sell-off in the market, dropping Bezos’ net worth to US$191.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The one-day wipeout is his third-worst, trailing only Apr 4, 2019, when the Amazon co-founder’s wealth tumbled US$36 billion following his divorce settlement, and Apr 29, 2022, when Amazon shares plunged 14 per cent.
The Nasdaq 100 Index fell 2.4 per cent, dragging down the fortunes of other tech billionaires including Elon Musk and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, whose net worths were pared US$6.6 billion and US$4.4 billion, respectively. Uncertainty over possible Federal Reserve rate cuts, as well as some high-profile earnings disappointments, have helped plunge the tech-heavy index into correction territory, wiping out more than US$2 trillion in value in just over three weeks.
Investors have also become jittery over fears that this year’s artificial intelligence (AI) fuelled gains are overdone or the market is too concentrated. The decline in Amazon shares – the biggest drop since April 2022 – came after the company said on an earnings call that it planned to continue spending big on AI even at the expense of short-term profits.
Technology billionaires Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and Larry Page also each lost more than US$3 billion on Friday as shares of Meta Platforms and Alphabet fell in New York trading. Tech tycoons in total saw US$68 billion carved from their fortunes, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index.
Bezos, 60, the world’s second-richest person, has been steadily offloading Amazon shares this year. He sold stock worth about US$8.5 billion over nine trading days in February. And on a day last month when Amazon hit a fresh record, he disclosed a plan to sell 25 million additional shares worth US$5 billion.
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The additional sales would bring his total this year to roughly US$13.5 billion, according to Bloomberg’s calculations. He would still hold almost 912 million shares, or about 8.8 per cent of Amazon, once those sales are complete.
His wealth also derives from space-exploration company Blue Origin and the Washington Post. BLOOMBERG
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