Fact Checked by 
Monday saw a huge stock market downturn that affected several Silicon Valley billionaire CEOs.
By the end of the market close on Monday, the Nasdaq 100 fell 3.4%, the Dow Jones fell over 1,000 points, and the S&P 500 fell 3%. That had a knock-on effect on Silicon Valley’s billionaire founders and C-suite executives and their net worths.
The nature of tech CEOs and other business leaders’ net worth means that it’s often tied to the value of their portfolios or the equity they hold in their companies. If those companies suffer, so does the value of their stock ownership. Tech stocks like Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft are experiencing major sell-offs and were hit particularly badly with the fallout on Monday.
This comes after poor employment data in the US on Friday sparked concerns about the stability of the economy, after months of worries about the so-called great resignation affecting the world of work What’s more, the US Federal Reserve also held off cutting interest rates last week, whereas other major banks like the Bank of England did. This would typically boost growth, which could have contributed to the drop the following Monday.
Who was affected by the stock market drop-off – and by how much?
Thanks to the Forbes billionaire list, via Business Insider it’s estimated that Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Oracle’s Larry Ellison lost $6.4 billion and $6.2 billion, respectively, in the sell-off. Those losses reflect the change in their net worth from market close on Friday to market close on Monday, after the stock market dip had taken effect.
In addition, Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, lost $5.9 billion of his net worth. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin lost $5.9 billion and $5.5 billion a piece.
Other familiar names from the tech world who saw billions of dollars in losses this week include Tesla CEO Elon Musk, with a $4.9 billion drop, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with $4.3 billion, Microsoft founder Bill Gates after a $2.6 billion loss, and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer with $3 billion.
Featured image: Flickr, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
