Enlarge image
Rich men, huge losses: Elon Musk
and
Jeff Bezos
are sitting on smaller fortunes today than at the beginning of the year
Photo: Hannibal Hanschke / Reuters;
Alex Wong/Getty Images
The 50 richest people in the world have already suffered wealth losses this year, adding up to an amount greater than Sweden's gross domestic product (GDP).
The assets of the top 50 billionaires worldwide have shrunk by a total of around 563 billion dollars, i.e. more than half a trillion, since the beginning of January.
This was calculated by the "Wall Street Journal" based on the Bloomberg billionaire index (Sweden had a GDP of around 537 billion dollars in 2020).
However, the losses exist primarily on paper.
The wealth of most of the super-rich is largely invested in the stocks of the companies they have founded or run.
In view of the Ukraine war, various crises all over the world and, above all, the high inflation rates and therefore rising interest rates, the stock markets have been plummeting for months.
The prices on the US technology exchange Nasdaq went down particularly rapidly – this hit the extremely rich entrepreneurs such as Tesla boss
Elon Musk
(50), Amazon founder
Jeff Bezos
(58) or Microsoft major shareholder
Bill Gates
(66) sensitively.
Musk, for example, the richest person in the world, currently has a fortune of around 201 billion dollars, according to Bloomberg.
At the beginning of the year it was about $70 billion more.
According to the "WSJ", no billionaire at the top of the richest list lost a higher amount than the entrepreneur who is currently preparing to take over the short message service Twitter.
According to the list, Amazon founder Bezos, number two on the billionaire ranking, has lost assets of $61 billion.
His fortune is currently about $131 billion.
The example of Bernard Arnault
(73)
shows that the price slide on the stock exchange is by no means limited to tech stocks .
The head of the luxury goods group LVMH and the richest man in Europe has posted a loss of $ 55 billion since the beginning of 2022, but is still sitting on a mountain of money of $ 123 billion.
Enlarge image
Richer than at the beginning of the year:
star investor
Warren Buffett
Photo:
Paul Morigi/ Getty Images
Bill Gates and
Warren Buffett
(91) complete the ranks of the five richest people in the world.
The Microsoft boss lost almost 22 billion dollars and now has assets of around 116 billion dollars.
Buffett, on the other hand, is the big exception: According to Bloomberg, his fortune is currently $ 110 billion - $ 1.2 billion more than at the beginning of the year.
One reason: Buffett has invested in Apple on a large scale and is therefore also affected by the price slide on the Nasdaq.
But his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, has a portfolio of holdings in a variety of industries, from insurance and banking to consumer goods companies, railroads and utilities.
This diversification should have saved the star investor from major losses - once again Buffett shows the competition where to go when it comes to investing.
cr
