American billionaire Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are among the biggest losers in the first half of 2022. This is as 500 world’s richest people recorded a loss of $1.4 trillion combined.
While Musk saw his fortune decline by $62 billion in the period under review, about $63 billion vanished from Bezos’ wealth in the same period.
In what appeared to be the steepest half-year ever, Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth was slashed by more than half.
Although the billionaires experienced huge losses during this period, most of them still maintain their status in the billionaires’ rank. For instance, even though Musk lost $61.8 billion, he remained the richest man in the world with $208.5 billion as net worth.
Like the Tesla’s co-founder, Bezos of Amazon maintained his spot as the second richest man in the world with $208.5 billion as net worth.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires index, Bernard Arnault, who’s the richest man in France ranks third with a $128.7 billion fortune, followed by Bill Gates with $114.8 billion. BizWatch Nigeria, however, understands that the aforementioned four billionaires are the only ones whose fortunes exceeded $100 billion at the start of the year.
Why Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos lost billions of dollars within six months
To combat high inflation which is on a global scale, authorities and policymakers resolved to raise interest rates. With this, the most attractive shares and the billionaires who own them are losing value. For instance, in April, Amazon’s shares dropped as much as 12%. This was after the multinational owned by Bezos recorded its slowest sales growth in almost 20 years.
