At the beginning of the year, some of the world’s richest people were gaining billions of dollars daily. However, in just one month, a market downturn wiped out $138 billion from the net worths of tech moguls like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison.
What’s Causing the Drop?
A major factor behind this sudden loss is the rise of DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company that has shaken up the tech industry. Its latest AI model, R1, has intensified competition, particularly in AI-driven businesses.
One of the biggest losers is Nvidia, whose market value plummeted by $600 billion. As a result, Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, lost over $20 billion in personal wealth.
Other major losses include:
- Larry Ellison (Oracle): Lost $27.6 billion, dropping from the world’s third-richest person to the fifth.
- Michael Dell (Dell Technologies): Lost $12.4 billion.
- Larry Page (Google co-founder): Lost $6.3 billion.
What This Means for Investors
For ordinary investors, such losses would be devastating. However, these billionaires still remain among the wealthiest people in the world. Even after losing nearly $90 billion, Elon Musk is still the richest person on the planet.
Despite the losses, industry leaders remain optimistic about the future of AI and tech innovation, seeing DeepSeek’s rise as a “world-class” breakthrough that will drive further advancements in the field.
