World’s richest billionaires suffer $1.4tn loss in six months

Very rich people incur losses, too. This year, Elon Musk wealth plunged almost $62 billion. Jeff Bezos found his fortune free-fell by about $63 billion. Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth was cut by more than 50 percent.

The Economic Times of India said the world’s 500 richest people lost almost $1.4 trillion in the first half of 2022, a fainting decline that marks the steepest six-month drop ever for the global billionaire group.

It’s an abrupt reverse trip from the previous two years, when the fortunes of the ultra-rich ballooned as governments and central banks unleashed unprecedented stimulus initiatives in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, inflating the value of everything from tech companies to cryptocurrencies.

With policy makers now hiking interest rates to combat elevated inflation, some of the highest-flying shares -- and the billionaires who own them – have been drifting away from the peaks. As for an example, Tesla Inc. had its worst quarter ever in the three months through June, while Amazon.com Inc. plummeted by the most since the dot-com bubble burst.

Though the losses are being accumulated for the world’s wealthiest people, it only represents a modest move toward narrowing wealth inequality. Musk, Tesla’s co-founder, still has the biggest fortune on the globe, at $208.5 billion, while Amazon’s Bezos has secured the second position with a $129.6 billion net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Meanwhile, Bernard Arnault, the richest French, ranks third with a $128.7 billion fortune, followed by Bill Gates with $114.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg index.

They’re the only four who are worth more than $100 billion -- at the beginning of the year, 10 people worldwide exceeded that amount, including Zuckerberg, who is now 17th on the wealth list with $60 billion.

Changpeng Zhao, the crypto pioneer who debuted on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in January with an estimated fortune of $96 billion, has seen his wealth tumble by almost $80 billion this year amid the turmoil in digital assets.