Tech slump and trade war shrink the fortunes of the world’s richest
An old stock market adage says that the market takes the stairs up and the elevator down, a cautionary reminder of how quickly profits that have taken months or years to build up can sometimes evaporate. 2025 reflects this dynamic: the world’s biggest fortunes have witnessed how the initial euphoria over Donald Trump’s victory — celebrated by the elite at his inauguration — has been followed by an even sharper retreat on Wall Street.
While it’s not a crash and doesn’t erase the gains from the two-plus years of prosperity enjoyed by U.S. markets, the impact has been significant, particularly for the largest global fortunes that are heavily dependent on their stock holdings. In just a matter of weeks, hundreds of billions have vanished, driven by the trade war and the economic uncertainty that the new Republican administration is instilling in the market.
A quick glance at Bloomberg’s list of the world’s 10 richest people provides a clear picture of who has been hardest hit by the market correction in recent weeks, with Elon Musk taking the biggest blow. Musk, worth $310 billion, has lost a staggering $175 billion since his peak on December 17 — 56% of his total wealth. He’s followed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who has lost $53 billion, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who has seen a $43 billion decline. Currently, they rank third and second, respectively, on Bloomberg’s list. Both reached their peak wealth in February.
These figures are hard to fathom: when you add the recent losses of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (-$18 billion), Alphabet co-founders Sergey Brin (-$31 billion) and Larry Page (-$33 billion), and Oracle founder and largest shareholder Larry Ellison (-$39 billion), all of whom are in the top 10, the combined loss amounts to $392 billion.
Amid the turbulence, two names stand out for dodging the storm: veteran investor Warren Buffett, with his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, and luxury mogul Bernard Arnault, the French owner of LVMH. Buffett has benefited from sharply reducing his stock market exposure, amassing record levels of liquidity, which he has used to purchase more conservative assets, such as U.S. debt.
Arnault, on the other hand, has benefited from a shift among investors toward European companies, which, unlike their U.S. counterparts, have started the year on a much more profitable note. These two are the only ones among the top 10 who do not rely on technology as their primary source of income, though Buffett still holds a significant stake in Apple, which he has been steadily reducing — from 50% of his portfolio in 2023 to 26% by September of last year.
Why have tech moguls been the hardest hit? When investors realize that boom times are coming and lose their fear of the risks that always hover over the stock market, they tend to gravitate toward growth stocks — especially technology stocks. These stocks often see their valuations inflated because, in many cases, they reflect expectations of a supposedly more prosperous future (as with artificial intelligence) rather than their current profits.
However, when the opposite happens and recession fears begin to loom, technology stocks are the first to be penalized. This has been evident over the past three months: the Nasdaq’s tech stocks lost nearly 8%, and the so-called Magnificent Seven — companies like Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, and Tesla —lost 15%.
This decline has directly impacted the finances of the billionaires behind these companies. Eight of the 10 richest people are connected to the technology sector through their stakes in these companies, with Tesla, the hardest hit, now worth half of what it was in December. Although Tesla primarily sells electric cars, many consider it a technology company due to its significant investments in autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence.
Not all of the correction can be attributed to Trump’s policies. The valuations of big tech companies were already a subject of debate before he took office. And it’s not unusual for investors to sell their holdings after a stock rises sharply in value, as seen in this case.
The Musk paradox
The stock market’s poor performance also impacts ordinary citizens, as tens of millions of Americans invest part of their salaries in stocks or have their pension plans tied to Wall Street’s performance.
However, Tesla’s decline, and consequently Elon Musk’s fortune, is sparking a certain amount of jubilation among his growing group of detractors. His political involvement with Trump, his mass layoffs of public employees, and his support for far-right parties worldwide are taking their toll on the electric car company, which has become the target of a boycott.
Last week, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who was Kamala Harris’s running mate during her presidential campaign, joked at a rally in Wisconsin about how it brightened his day to watch Tesla’s stock price fall continuously. “$225 and dropping!” he exclaimed to his audience, referring to the automaker’s plummeting share price.
Musk is facing a paradox. He likely wields more power than ever before, thanks to his connection with Trump, but at the same time, he’s seeing Tesla lose some of the aura that once propelled it to surpass $1 trillion in market value and rank among the top 10 largest companies by market capitalization. This decline is due in part to fierce competition from China — BYD recently launched technology that charges electric cars in just five minutes — and Tesla’s increasingly poor reputation among broader segments of the population.
This isn’t the only contradiction Musk is grappling with. In response to Tesla’s stock market crash, Trump organized a propaganda event at the White House to buy a Tesla, endorse his friend, and accuse “radical left-wing lunatics” of orchestrating a boycott. But as Per Lekander of the hedge fund Clean Energy Transition explained to Financial Times, promoting electric cars to a Republican base that favors expanding oil drilling and prefers large vehicles may not be the most effective strategy. “[Musk] is on the wrong side of his buyership. It’s not people with cowboy boots who buy Teslas,” he said.
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