Featured Image Credit: Julia Demaree Nikhinson - Pool/Getty Images
Billionaires have lost a whopping $209 billion since attending President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
Trump made his return to the White House earlier this year and many were surprised to see that some of the world’s wealthiest people were in attendance for the event.
This included billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and - of course - Elon Musk.
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And while the stock market was looking flush with funds at the time, things have taken a turn for the worse.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, five billionaires who were present at the inauguration have since lost a combined total of $209 billion.
Both Zuckerberg and Bernard Arnault, who is the CEO of LVMH, are down by $5 billion each.
Sergey Brin, the former president of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has lost $22 billion in wealth.
Bezos’ net worth has shrunk by $29 billion, but nothing compares to the biggest loss experienced by Musk.
The Tesla boss has lost a whopping $148 billion since the start of this year.
And there could be a simple explanation as to why Musk has seen the biggest hit to his finances in recent weeks.
According to a report by Entrepreneur, this is due to a plummet in Tesla share prices, which have dropped from $404 to $263 this year.
And this dip may be a result of Musk’s close proximity to the Trump administration after taking on the role of the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
While technically not a government department, DOGE is purported to act as an outside advisor to the president on federal spending.
Although, concerns have been raised over Musk’s access to confidential data in the Treasury payment system and his close proximity to government seems to have ruffled a few feathers within Tesla too.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said, as per Barrons: “While the DOGE/Trump Musk iron-clad partnership has created major brand worries for Tesla … we estimate less than five percent of Tesla sales globally are at risk from these issues.
“We expect Musk will better balance his time between DOGE and Tesla/SpaceX over the course of 2025.”
Although, Tesla shareholders have been publicly venting their thoughts on the billionaire now splitting his time between various job roles.
One shareholder even demanded on X, formerly Twitter, that Musk share ‘five things he’s done for them this week’.
The jibe appeared to use Musk’s own words against him as it referenced a controversial email sent out by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which demanded federal employees justify their paychecks.
