World's richest lose $208 bln in a day after new US tariffs announced
3 Min Read
As Trump's tariffs plunge US stocks, billionaires witness massive losses as their stocks see the biggest declines in years.
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A board above the trading floor shows the closing number for the Dow Jones industrial average, at the New York Stock Exchange, on Friday, August 2, 2024. (AP)
The world's richest people have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in one single day following Trump's announcement of reciprocal tariffs on more than 180 countries on Wednesday.
The richest people in the world lost a total of $208 billion dollars in 24 hours following the US tariffs announcement, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index (BBI) on Thursday, in the fourth-largest plummet since the BBI was launched 13 years ago and the largest since the economic recession brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meta, which is banned in Russia as an extremist organization, saw its shares drop by nearly 9% on Thursday, leading to a 9% loss in the fortune of its founder Mark Zuckerberg, amounting to $17.9 billion, according to BBI data, which also indicated that Zuckerberg became the biggest loser in dollar terms.
On the other hand, Jeff Bezos, owner of the online retailer Amazon, lost $15.9 billion after Amazon shares saw a 9% decline, which is the largest drop Amazon has witnessed since April 2022.
US billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who owns Tesla and SpaceX and is a key ally to US President Trump, lost $11 billion on Thursday amid an almost 5.5% drop in Tesla shares.
Markets witness shakeup
Trump's tariffs sent waves across global markets as traders waited anxiously for the White House announcement.
The US dollar saw a 1% drop against the Euro on April 2, with similar drops against other important currencies like the British Pound Sterling and the Swiss Franc.
US stocks declined in after-hours trading following President Donald Trump's announcement of broad new tariffs set at a minimum of 10%, with even steeper rates imposed on certain countries.
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), mirroring the S&P 500, dropped roughly 2%, while the Invesco QQQ ETF, tied to the Nasdaq-100 Index, fell 3.3%. The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) also slid 1%.
Major importers saw sharp losses in Wednesday evening trading, with Nike plunging 6% and General Motors dropping 3%. Stocks already battered by tariff concerns over the past month extended their declines, including Nvidia and Tesla, each down approximately 3%.
Gold futures surged $20.20, or 0.6%, to settle at $3,166.20 per ounce on Wednesday as investors sought safe-haven assets ahead of President Donald Trump's anticipated tariff announcement, while spot gold hovered near $3,127 by the US market close.
Bitcoin fell sharply on April 3, dropping over 5% after global markets reacted to President Donald Trump's aggressive new trade tariffs. The cryptocurrency hit around $81,812 on Binance—a 5.93% decline in 24 hours—while CoinMarketCap reported a 5.46% drop, averaging $81,769 by 17:25 GMT.
