Washington
The fortunes of Silicon Valley billionaires have been dashed in 2022 as the stocks of global tech giants plummet.
After becoming the richest person in the world in 2021, the Tesla and SpaceX boss has seen more than half of his net worth evaporate this year, propelling French luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault to the top spot .
According to Bloomberg’s World’s Richest People’s Index, Musk will lose $140 billion in 2022 due to the Tesla stock crash, leaving his total net worth at just $130 billion.
Once a darling of Wall Street investors, the future of the electric car company is now in question as Musk pushed ahead with his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.
Musk funded its $44 billion acquisition of Twitter primarily through the sale of Tesla shares, sending the stock into an even steeper downward spiral.
Facebook’s founders are all about promoting the so-called Metaverse, but investors aren’t convinced the world will be fully virtualized anytime soon.
Shares of Facebook’s parent company Meta have plummeted in 2022.
Wall Street’s lack of confidence has slashed $81 billion from Zuckerberg’s fortune, which stands at $44.4 billion as of December 28.
Meta faces tough competition from breakout app TikTok and, like arch-rival Google, is plagued by a sullen ad market as the global economy faces a recession amid high inflation. .
Since stepping down as Amazon CEO in July 2021, Bezos has spent much of his time developing space exploration projects through his company, Blue Origin.
However, his fortune remains heavily dependent on the online retail giant’s share price, which has fallen more than 49% in 2022.
Amazon chairman Bezos lost more than $86 billion this year, leaving an estimated $106 billion fortune.
The 58-year-old entrepreneur and Washington Post owner told CNN in November that he plans to donate most of his fortune to charity during his lifetime.
The two Google founders haven’t led the company since 2019, but remain board members of parent company Alphabet, which also owns health, artificial intelligence and other subsidiaries.
Alphabet’s stock has fallen 39% since January due to declining online advertising revenue and increased competition from Apple and Amazon.
Page’s fortune is down to $46.1 billion and Brin’s to $44.8 billion. According to Bloomberg, they’re still he’s the 10th richest and he’s the 11th richest people on the planet.
The Chinese billionaire is an outlier in the tech debacle. The TikTok owner, his Bytedance founder, has seen his fortune grow by $10.4 billion in 2022.
His $55 billion net worth makes him the second richest person in China and the 23rd richest person in the world.
But storm clouds are looming over TikTok as political pressure mounts in Washington over accusations that the huge success of the video-sharing app has made the US vulnerable to Communist-led China.
Federal officials have already banned TikTok on government phones and are reportedly considering whether to force Bytedance to sell the US version of the app.