Top 500 Global Billionaires' Wealth Evaporates by 182 Trillion on 'Black Friday'

Amazon Founder Bezos Loses 20 Trillion Won

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 2nd, when the U.S. stock market plunged so sharply it was called a "Black Friday," the asset valuation of the world's richest billionaires also shrank by more than 182 trillion won.

On the 3rd (local time), Bloomberg reported that the total asset value of the world's top 500 billionaires listed on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index decreased by $134 billion (approximately 182.44 trillion won).

In particular, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, saw his net worth drop by $15.2 billion in one day to $191 billion. This is the third-largest decline after April 4, 2019, when he split assets due to divorce, and April 29, 2022, when Amazon's stock price plunged 14%. Bezos ranks as the world's second-richest person on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and the top-ranked billionaire on the index, saw his asset value decrease by $6.57 billion on the same day. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta and ranked 4th, lost $3.39 billion; Larry Page, co-founder of Google and ranked 6th, lost $3.45 billion; and Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle and ranked 7th, lost $4.37 billion. The combined decrease in their asset values amounts to approximately $68 billion.

The stock prices, which had risen amid the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, were perceived as excessively overvalued. Additionally, the U.S. July employment data, including a 4.3% unemployment rate, came out weak, causing the Nasdaq index to plunge 2.43% in a single day on the 2nd.

Top market capitalization stocks such as Microsoft (-2.07%), Nvidia (-1.78%), Alphabet A (Google's parent company, -2.40%), Meta (-1.93%), and Tesla (-4.24%) all showed declines. Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce company, saw its drop widen to 8.78% due to poor earnings performance.