A Bad Half For Tech Billionaires.
Elon Musk’s fortune plunged by almost $62 billion. Jeff Bezos saw his wealth tumble by about $63 billion. Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth was slashed by more than half.
● All told, the world’s 500 richest people lost $1.4 trillion in the first half of 2022, a dizzying decline that marks the steepest six-month drop ever for the global billionaire class.
● It’s a sharp departure from the previous two years, when the fortunes of the ultra-rich swelled as governments and central banks unleashed unprecedented stimulus measures in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, juicing the value of everything from tech companies to cryptocurrencies.
● Now that policymakers raise interest rates to combat the high inflation, Some of the highest-flying stocks, and the billionaires who own them, are rapidly losing ground. Tesla had its worst quarter in the three months through June, while amazon.com it slumped the most since the dot-com bubble burst.
●Though the losses are piling up for the world’s wealthiest people represents only a modest step towards reducing wealth inequality. Musk, the co-founder of Tesla, still has the largest fortune on the planetwith $208.5 billion, while Amazon’s Bezos ranks second with a net worth of $129.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
● Bernard Arnault, The richest person in France, ranks third with a fortune of $128.7 billion, followed by Bill Gates with $114.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg index. They are the only four worth more than 100 billion: at the beginning of the year, 10 people worldwide exceeded that amount, including Zuckerberg, who now ranks 17th on the wealth list with 60 billion.
Contrary impulse
●Still, the billionaire class has accumulated so much wealth in recent years that the vast majority can not only endure the worst first half of a year since 1970 for the index S&P 500Instead, they’re probably looking for bargains, said Thorne Perkin, president of Papamarkou Wellner. Asset Management.
●“Oftentimes, their mindset is a little bit more contrary,” Perkin said. “Many of our clients look for opportunities when trouble is on the streets.”
●That was true in the first half of the year in some of the most distressed corners of global financial markets.
●Vladimir Putin the wealthiest man in Russia with a fortune of 35.2 billion dollars, acquired Societe Generale SA’s full position in Rosbank PJSC earlier this year amid the fallout from Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Also bought the stake of the sanctioned Russian tycoon Oleg Tinkov in a digital bank for a fraction of what it was once worth.
●Sam Bankman Fried CEO of crypto exchange FTX, bought a 7.6 percent stake in Robinhood Markets in early May after the app-based brokerage’s share price fell 77 percent since its much-anticipated initial public offering last July. The 30-year-old billionaire has also been acting as a lender of last resort for some troubled cryptocurrency companies.
●The most high-profile purchase of all was that of Musk, who struck a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. He offered to pay $54.20 per share; Shares of the social media company closed Thursday at $37.39.
●The wealthiest man in the world once said in an interview with Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait last month that there are “some unresolved issues” before the transaction can be completed.
●“There is a limit to what I can say publicly,” Elon Musk commented. “It’s kind of a sensitive issue.”
(StoryCredit: Bloomberg.com)
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