Billionaires are shedding billions after reporting poor earnings

After years of stocks climbing to profound heights and billionaires amassing insurmountable wealth, a bout of poor tech earnings has led to billions instantly slashed from the fortunes of company founders.

Jeff Bezos is set to see around $23 billion erased from his net worth in a single day after his online retail giant Amazon warned consumer spending was in “uncharted waters,” in its latest earnings report released on Thursday, and issued revenue forecasts well below Wall Street expectations.

The news sent shares plunging in after-hours trading on Thursday, with Amazon stock falling as much as 21% after market close. While the share price has moderately recovered — only down 13% by 6:00 a.m. ET — if the drop carries through into Friday, Bezos will sustain the fifth largest one-day decline in wealth on record, according to Bloomberg.

With Bezos holding around 996 million shares in Amazon, according to an August filing, his net worth now lingers around $111 billion — almost half of the $214 billion peak it reached in July 2021.

But even with Amazon’s recent headwinds, Bezos isn’t the biggest billionaire loser in the broader tech stock slump. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Binance’s Changpeng Zhao, and Tesla’s Elon Musk have all taken a larger hit over the year.  

In the red

While Bezos has seen $58 billion wiped from his net worth this year, Zuckerberg can claim a greater loss.

As Meta dives deeper into Zuckerberg’s virtual reality vision, the share price of his social media giant has plummeted with the CEO himself shaving $100 billion off his fortune in just 13 months.

After Meta reported a second straight quarter of disappointing earnings on Thursday, Zuckerberg’s net worth fell by $11 billion in a single day.

Over the course of this year, Zuckerberg has sustained the single biggest decline on Bloomberg’s wealth list, with his net worth now standing at around $38.1 billion — a stunning 73% fall from the $142 billion peak in September 2021.

After Wednesday’s poor earnings results — which saw the Meta share price opening 25% lower on Thursday morning — Meta shares are now worth only $100, the lowest price since 2016 and a fraction of its $382 peak price.

Zuckerberg is now 23^rd on Bloomberg’s Billionaire List, a steep fall from when he was once in third place, only trailing behind Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

The second and third biggest drops in net worth can be claimed by the chief executive of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, CZ and Tesla owner Elon Musk.

Zhao’s fortune was once just shy of $100 billion, but after a long crypto winter which has left the price of Bitcoin 70% down from its all-time high of near $69,000 in November and retail investors shying away from the asset, Zhao’s net worth has tumbled.

Zhao’s net worth now clocks in at $23.6 billion — a 75.4% fall in one year.

And finally comes new Twitter owner Musk.

The world’s richest human has lost more than $100 billion in the last 12 months.

The man once worth more than ExxonMobil, has seen his net worth depleted as a result of the falling price of Tesla — which is down 43.7% year to date — and a tricky acquisition with Twitter, which lasted 9 months and cost Musk $44 billion.

Tech stock founders aside, the top 100 richest people have lost almost $953 billion in their net worth so far this year.

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