Trump’s additional 100pc tariff on China imports: World’s 10 richest lose $70bn in Friday’s market rout

WASHINGTON: The world’s 10 richest people lost nearly $70 billion on Friday as fresh fears of a global trade war rattled markets, the Business Insider reported.

The value of their stock holdings tumbled after President Donald Trump said the US would impose an additional 100 percent tariff on imports from China from November 1, and restrict its access to “any and all critical software,” after China tightened export controls on rare earth elements and other key materials for advanced tech manufacturing.

Tesla stock slid 5 percent on Friday, shrinking CEO Elon Musk’s wealth by about $16 billion, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw around $10 billion erased from their respective net worths as the e-commerce giant’s stock fell 5 percent and the social media titan’s shares dropped almost 4 percent.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took an $8 billion hit as the chipmaker’s stock fell nearly 5%, while Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison and Dell CEO Michael Dell both saw their fortunes shrink by more than $5 billion as shares of their companies retreated on worries of slower growth and more trade disruption. In all, the world’s 10 wealthiest people saw a $69 billion wealth reduction.

Trump sought to reassure markets, posting to Truth Social on Sunday, “Don’t worry, It will all be fine.” Shares of Tesla, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Dell were trading around 2 percent higher as of 10:20 a.m ET on Monday, while Oracle shares were up 4.5 percent.

The 10 richest people’s wealth loss sounds painful, but they were still collectively worth over $2.9 trillion at Friday’s close, led by Musk’s $437 billion, Ellison’s $351 billion, Zuckerberg’s $248 billion, and Bezos’ $240 billion.

They were still $385 billion in the green for this year as of Friday, with a $159 billion year-to-date wealth gain for Ellison alone, fueled by Oracle’s 75 percent stock surge in 2025. All of them except LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault rank among the largest shareholders of US tech giants, meaning they’ve benefited significantly from the buzz around AI that has boosted tech stocks this year.