The fortunes of Silicon Valley billionaires took a beating in 2022 when the share prices of the world’s tech giants plummeted.
Here are some of those hardest hit by this year’s fall in tech stocks.
Elon Musk
After becoming the world’s richest person in 2021, the Tesla and SpaceX boss saw more than half his net worth evaporate, propelling French luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault to the top spot.
Elon Musk lost $140 billion in 2022 due to Tesla’s stock price collapse, leaving his total net worth at $130 billion, according to BloombergIndex of the richest people in the world.
Once a darling of Wall Street investors, the electric car company’s future is now in doubt after Musk pushed through a $44 billion buyout of Twitter that many observers see as an expensive distraction.
Musk largely financed his purchase by selling Tesla stock, putting the stock price on an even steeper downward spiral.
mark zuckerberg
The Facebook founder has put all his efforts into promoting the so-called metaverse, but investors aren’t so sure that the world will go completely virtual any time soon.
The share price of Meta, Facebook’s parent company, fell off a cliff in 2022.
Lack of confidence on Wall Street has shaved $81 billion from Zuckerberg’s fortune, leaving it at $44.4 billion as of December 28. Meta has faced stiff competition from emerging app TikTok and, like arch-rival Google, is plagued by a moody ad market as the global economy grapples with recession amid high inflation.
Jeff Bezos
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.
But his fortune remains tightly tied to the online retail giant’s share price, which fell more than 49% in 2022.
Bezos, who remains Amazon’s chief executive, lost more than $86 billion last year, leaving an estimated fortune of $106 billion. The 58-year-old businessman and owner of the Washington Post he told CNN in November that he planned to donate most of his wealth to charity during his lifetime.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin
The two Google founders have not been at the helm of the company since 2019, but remain members of the board of directors of parent company Alphabet, which also owns healthcare, artificial intelligence and other subsidiaries.
Alphabet’s share price fell 39% last year, hurt by declining online ad revenue and increased competition from Apple and Amazon.
Page’s wealth has shrunk to $46.1 billion and Brin’s to $44.8 billion. They continue to rank tenth and eleventh among the richest people on the planet, according to Bloomberg.
zhang yiming
The Chinese billionaire is an outlier in the tech debacle. The Bytedance founder, owner of TikTok, saw his fortune rise by $10.4 billion in 2022. His net worth of $55 billion makes him the second richest person in China and the twenty-third richest person in the world.
But storm clouds are gathering for TikTok as political pressure mounts in Washington over allegations that the video-sharing app’s immense success leaves the United States vulnerable to China. US version of the app. — AFP
