Billionaires lose combined $208bn in one day from Trump tariffs

WASHINGTON: The world’s 500 richest people saw their combined wealth plunge by $208 billion Thursday as broad tariffs announced by President Donald Trump sent global markets into a tailspin.

The drop is the fourth-largest one-day decline in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index’s 13-year history, and the largest since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, foreign media reported.

More than half of those tracked by Bloomberg’s wealth index saw their fortunes tumble, with an average decline of 3.3%. Billionaires in the US were among the hardest hit, with Meta Platforms Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos leading the way.

Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man, was among a small group of billionaires outside the US who escaped the tariffs’ impact. The Mexican Bolsa rose 0.5% after the country was excluded from the White House’s list of reciprocal tariff targets, pushing Slim’s net worth up by about 4% to $85.5 billion. The Middle East was the only region where those on Bloomberg’s wealth index eked out net gains for the day.

Here are some of the day’s biggest losers: Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder, was the biggest loser in dollar terms, with the social media company’s 9% slide costing its chief executive officer $17.9 billion, or around 9% of his wealth. Meta was the standout winner among the Magnificent Seven index of megacap tech stocks from New Year’s Day through mid-February, riding nearly a month of consecutive gains to add more than $350 billion in market value. Since mid-February, though, shares have tumbled about 28%.

Jeff Bezos: Amazon shares plunged 9% Thursday, their biggest drop since April 2022, costing the tech giant’s founder $15.9 billion in personal wealth. The company’s stock is down more than 25% from its February peak.

Elon Musk: The Tesla CEO has lost $110 billion so far this year — including $11 billion on Thursday — as lagging deliveries and his controversial role as Trump’s efficiency czar have hammered the electric-vehicle manufacturer’s stock. Earlier this week, things were looking up: Because Tesla manufactures many of its cars in the US, tariffs could have a lesser effect on the company than its foreign peers. It stock also rallied on reports that Musk would soon be stepping back from his government work to potentially refocus on Tesla. However, shares fell 5.5% Thursday after tariffs were announced.