It’s been a dreary 12 months for tech billionaires’ web worths, however they nonetheless have more cash than many small nations
However the billionaires are removed from destitute. Zuckerberg, for instance, remains to be value practically $45 billion, or greater than the GDP of Iceland. And a number of other of the billionaires are literally value greater than they have been in 2019, because the market’s accelerated development in the course of the early part of the pandemic padded their portfolios earlier than their wealth plunges this 12 months.
Tech shares fell dramatically in 2022 because the pandemic gross sales bump that boosted a lot of them waned. Tech giants, which have grown at breakneck paces for the previous decade, started hiring freezes and big layoffs.
Not all tech executives felt the monetary pinch this 12 months. Chinese language web entrepreneur Zhang Yiming, founding father of TikTok’s guardian firm ByteDance, has seen his fortune rise by greater than $10 billion to a web value of practically $55 billion. A number of tech moguls in the US suffered monetary losses however to a lesser diploma: Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle, shed $16 billion this 12 months however stays the seventh richest particular person on the earth; Michael Dell of Dell Applied sciences noticed his web value shrink by about $7 billion, conserving him simply forward of Zuckerberg on the record of the highest 25 wealthiest folks.
The broader markets additionally nosedived this 12 months as traders and corporations grappled with battle abroad, rising inflation and rates of interest and more and more budget-strapped customers. Billionaires who made their fortunes in non-tech industries additionally shaved fortunes from their web worths.
However a few of the most important drops have hit tech moguls. See how a lot a number of tech leaders misplaced this 12 months:
Elon Musk misplaced $132 billion in web value this 12 months, a loss that exceeds the fortunes of every of the opposite rich males on this record.
The CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, was the richest particular person on the earth for a lot of this 12 months. However Musk, who holds a lot of his wealth in Tesla shares, misplaced that crown as Tesla inventory spiraled downward, plunging practically 70 p.c all year long.
Tesla inventory has felt the brunt of concern that demand for the electrical autos is weakening in China, a significant marketplace for the corporate. Tesla additionally confronted challenges tied to the rising price of provides to make the autos.
Some traders have additionally been cautious about Musk’s concentrate on Twitter. He offered Tesla shares to assist fund his $44 billion takeover of the social media firm, and his quick reign on the helm of Twitter has been marked by upheaval. The turmoil has made some Tesla traders uneasy, and so they’ve urged Musk to as soon as once more concentrate on the automobile firm.
Jeff Bezos misplaced $84.1 billion this 12 months as tech shares tumbled from their stratospheric heights, and Amazon shares plunged practically 50 p.c, marking one in every of its worst years ever available on the market.
The founder and chairman of Amazon stepped down from his position as CEO final 12 months, however he stays its largest shareholder.
Amazon grappled with excessive inflation and slowing development, as the large bump in gross sales it skilled in the course of the coronavirus pandemic waned this 12 months. The corporate has not been resistant to layoffs hitting the tech business, and it’s within the strategy of slicing about 10,000 folks from its company divisions.
Bezos can also be the founding father of house journey firm Blue Origin, and owns The Washington Put up, which he purchased for $250 million in 2013.
Mark Zuckerberg’s web value plunged practically $81 billion this 12 months. The Fb founder slid from the sixth richest particular person on the finish of final 12 months to No. 25, in accordance with the Bloomberg Billionaire’s index.
It’s been a attempting 12 months for Fb, which introduced it was altering the title of its guardian firm to Meta final 12 months. Zuckerberg, who nonetheless leads the corporate he based as a university scholar, has orchestrated the corporate’s shift to focus extra on the metaverse, a tackle an interconnected digital world.
Meta reported its first two quarterly income drops this 12 months as the corporate faces elevated competitors from TikTok and different, smaller social media apps, and a harder digital promoting atmosphere. The corporate warned it deliberate to lose much more subsequent 12 months because it builds out the metaverse. Meta introduced it planned to lay off 11,000 workers this fall because it sought to chop bills.
Larry Web page and Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin and Larry Web page misplaced a collective $88 billion this 12 months. The founders of Google and present board members of guardian firm Alphabet stepped away from their govt roles in 2019, however they nonetheless maintain main sway over the enterprise via a particular class of voting shares. Web page had served as chief govt whereas Brin was president of Alphabet.
In a punishing 12 months for digital promoting, even business giants corresponding to Alphabet haven’t been spared. Alphabet has slowed its hiring and has shuttered its cloud streaming service for video video games, Stadia.
Earlier this 12 months, Brin filed for a divorce from his spouse, though the final word monetary breakdown of the cut up will probably stay out of public view, after the couple took steps to defend particulars of the breakup.
The entrepreneur, philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft misplaced practically $29 billion in 2022. Gates’s roughly 20 p.c fall practically matches the decline of the S&P 500 this 12 months, that means the billionaire’s losses have largely tracked with a broad barometer for the general market and a gauge of the financial system. In actual fact, he beat out the Nasdaq composite index.
Gates’s investments are diversified, with giant stakes in a number of corporations, opulent actual property and big swaths of farmland. However his most precious single holding stays shares of Microsoft, which shrank by practically 30 p.c this 12 months. Whereas income for Microsoft’s cloud providers elevated by 24 p.c in the course of the firm’s most up-to-date quarter, gross sales for its Home windows working system fell by 15 p.c. And Microsoft stated it expects slowing development for its cloud income subsequent 12 months, which despatched Wall Avenue into promoting mode.
The immensity and complexity of Gates’s huge wealth performed a notable position within the widespread curiosity in his divorce from Melinda French Gates final 12 months.
The previous chief govt of Microsoft and proprietor of the Los Angeles Clippers misplaced greater than $20 billion this 12 months because the tech big’s slide ate into his web value.
Most of Ballmer’s wealth is tied up in shares of Microsoft, the place he served as CEO from 2000 to 2014. Whereas the corporate has fared higher than different tech titans that rely extra on promoting and client spending, the Home windows-maker nonetheless shed greater than 1 / 4 of its worth this 12 months. Along with forecasting slower cloud development, Microsoft has warned traders that it expects weak PC gross sales to increase into subsequent 12 months, and advertisers pulling again on spending will diminish income for LinkedIn and search advertisements.
After retiring from Microsoft in 2014, he bought the Clippers for $2 billion. He’s shelling out much more cash to construct the league’s premier area, the Intuit Dome, outfitted with a 44,000-square-foot oval scoreboard and an abundance of bogs to scale back rest room wait occasions throughout video games.
Calculations of loss worth and web value have been sourced from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of Dec. 24.
Enhancing by Karly Domb Sadof and Sergio Non. Copy modifying by Adrienne Dunn. Design by Emma Kumer. Images at prime (from left to proper) by John Locher/AP, Michael Nagle/Bloomberg, Matt McClain/The Washington Put up, Mark Lennihan/AP, Aly Music/Reuters, Jeff Chiu/AP and Romain Maurice/Getty.
