Being the richest people in the world sometimes involves losing eye-watering amounts of money, and the trio of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg all suffered the same fate in response to President Trump's new tariffs, losing $42,600,000,000 combined overnight.
It was certainly a memorable sight to see many of the richest individuals in the world lined up in the front row at US President Donald Trump's January inauguration, as their combined net worth stretched beyond $1.35 trillion.
While one key tech mogul was absent at the event, many near the top of Forbes' recently released rich list that were present have also suffered financially thanks to President Trump, so they might just be feeling some regret at this point.
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As reported by The Independent, the three richest people in the world - Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos - lost $42.6 billion combined in a matter of hours, and it was all thanks to the stock market volatility introduced by Trump's unprecedented tariff implementation.
Dubbed by the president as 'Liberation Day', tariffs were announced for almost every country on Earth - even some that have a population of zero - and the market has responded negatively overall.
At the time of writing big tech companies like Meta were down 8.96% in the last 24 hours, alongside a 5.47% decline for Tesla and 8.98% for Amazon.
Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos have seen $8.7 billion, $17.9 billion, and $16 billion declines to their net worths respectively, and while that remains a fraction of the former's $342 billion haul, it represents just under 10% of both Zuckerberg and Bezos' fortunes.
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Overall, Bloomberg has estimated that roughly $208 billion has been wiped out from the wealth of the richest 500 people worldwide, marking a significant decline in a year that has already proved troublesome with Trump's previous tariffs and the DeepSeek AI 'bubble burst'.
White House Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously denied that stock market declines were a consequence of tariffs, instead placing the blame on the tech world's 'Magnificent Seven' (Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia) for their 'overpriced' stocks and over reliance on AI.
Bessent called it a "Mag 7 problem not a MAGA problem," but it's unclear whether those at the helm of many of these tech giants would necessarily feel the same way now.
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Musk's Tesla has already suffered significant stock market losses this year as a consequence of existing tariffs, reports of sales declines, and a growing unfavorable opinion towards the CEO, and it's indicated that Elon loses around $1 billion every time Tesla drops just $2.43 on the stock market.
However, it was only five months ago in the weeks following Trump's election victory that these same billionaires saw significant boosts to their net worth, as markets predicted that his return to presidency would bring success for the tech industry.