It¡¯s been a year to forget for most of the world¡¯s billionaires, with their businesses¡¯ valuations, stock prices, and personal net worths plummeting massively in 2022.
After adding trillions of dollars to their collective fortunes in 2020 and 2021, the?world¡¯s richest people were rocked by 12 months of shaky stock markets, war in Europe, rampant inflation, and global recession fears, as per a Forbes report.
As a group, the planet¡¯s billionaires have lost a mammoth $1.9 trillion in 2022, according to Forbes¡¯ estimates, with their collective wealth dropping from $13.8 trillion on New Year¡¯s Day (January 1st, 2022) to $11.9 trillion on December 9th.
Even the number of billionaires has fallen, from 2,671 to 2,523, per Forbes¡¯ real-time tracker, as high-profile moguls like FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, and Rivian founder RJ Scaringe have dropped massively from the ranks.??
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No one has been hit harder than the?world¡¯s 300 or so tech?billionaires, who have collectively lost more than $1 trillion in 2022. After a raucous couple of years when the pandemic boom and overeager investors drove up tech stocks and startup valuations, things have plummeted back to earth. Companies are going for massive cost cuts, laying off workers, and pulling back IPO plans.?
Ecommerce giant Amazon's shares have plummeted nearly 50%, which has helped knock more than $80 billion off founder Jeff Bezos¡¯ net worth.?
Google parent Alphabet¡¯s stock has been down 36%, as per a Forbes?report, lopping more than $40 billion apiece from the fortunes of cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Microsoft stock has slid 27% through December 9, denting the riches of cofounder Bill Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer, though Gates¡¯ bad year is mostly his own doing: This summer, he made a $20 billion gift to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Mark Zuckerberg has also lost a sizable portion of his fortune, losing $78 billion this year as shares of Facebook-parent Meta Platforms fell by more than 66%.?
It's not a surprise that the biggest loser among billionaires this year, by far, is Elon Musk,?whom Forbes classifies as an automotive billionaire since most of his net worth stems from electric vehicle maker Tesla. Investors have reminded Elon Musk of this fact, driving Tesla's stock price down 60% through December 20 this year, in part due to concerns that Musk, who is also CEO of rocket maker SpaceX, is spending far too much time and money on his $44 billion purchase, according to Twitter.?
According to Forbes, Elon Musk has lost more than $115 billion of his wealth in 2022. He began the year as the planet¡¯s richest person by a huge margin, some $70 billion ahead of French luxury goods kingpin Bernard Arnault.?Musk lost the top spot to Bernard Arnault?earlier this month, and his net worth has continued to plunge since then.??
American billionaires have lost the most this year, with some $660 billion in collective wealth going up in smoke. In addition to the heavy losses sustained by Musk and the nation¡¯s tech billionaires, American entrepreneurs like Nike cofounder Phil Knight (who is down $18.3 billion), former Estee Lauder boss Leonard Lauder (-$9.8 billion), and Rocket Mortgage founder Dan Gilbert (-$8.1 billion) rank among the U.S. citizens who had the worst 2022.
Chinese billionaires, too, haven¡¯t fared much better. They are down an aggregate $620 billion, with big losers including Alibaba cofounder Jack Ma (-$13.1 billion), who is reportedly living in Japan following China¡¯s tech crackdown, real estate heir Yang Huiyan (-$11.6 billion), and bottled water mogul Zhong Shanshan (-$11.3 billion), as per the Forbes report.
Meanwhile, the?war with Ukraine?continues to impact?Russia¡¯s richest?people, leading to an estimated $150 billion drop in the total net worth of the nation¡¯s billionaires, as per a Forbes report.
Amidst the mammoth $1.9 trillion bloodbath, some billionaires did turn out to be exceptions.?
Todd Boehly, an investor and sports magnate, and designer Tom Ford are two new billionaires. And it¡¯s been a great year for a handful of super-fortunate billionaires, including Colin Zheng Huang (+$11.1 billion), the Chinese billionaire behind e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, and Low Tuck Kwong (+$16 billion), who is known as the coal king of Indonesia.
And you probably won¡¯t hear any complaints about 2022 from?Indian?billionaire?Gautam Adani.
Adani had the best year of all, gaining $55.1 billion over the past 12 months as his Adani Group¡ªwhich has interests in ports, airports, power generation, green energy, and real estate¡ªskyrocketed in value. At $133.9 billion, he¡¯s set to begin 2023 as the world¡¯s third-richest person¡ªwell within striking distance of a sputtering Elon Musk.??
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