The 10 wealthiest individuals in the world, including Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA), have lost $174 billion following President Donald Trump‘s tariff announcement on April 2. On a year-to-date basis, they lost nearly a staggering $350 billion.
What Happened: Following Trump’s tariff declaration last Wednesday, the S&P 500 plummeted 11%. This resulted in a significant shrinkage of the equity stakes of the world’s richest, who had a combined net worth exceeding $2 trillion at the start of 2025.
As per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, since the tariff announcement on April 2, Elon Musk and Meta (NASDAQ:META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw the maximum decline, with Musk losing $33 billion, while Zuckerberg lost $26 billion. Amazon‘s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Jeff Bezos saw a decline of $21 billion, while Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison witnessed a $20 billion drop in their net worth.
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, lost $12 billion and $11 billion, each. Former Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Balmer saw their fortune decline by $15 billion and $9 billion, respectively.
Meanwhile, Bernard Arnault, the French billionaire and CEO of the luxury brand LVMH, lost $14 billion of his net worth.
Surprisingly, legendary investor and chief of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK) (NYSE:BRK), Warren Buffett’s net worth also fell by $13 billion since Trump’s tariff announcement on April 2. However, Buffett maintained a positive net worth year-to-date.
Why It Matters: On Monday, Musk’s net worth dipped below $300 billion, a level unseen since the previous year. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index indicated that Musk’s wealth was $298 billion at Monday’s market close, marking a reduction of nearly $135 billion, or 31%, since the beginning of the year.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s net worth also took a significant hit post the implementation of his extensive new tariffs. Within days, Trump's estimated net worth declined by nearly $600 million, falling from $4.7 billion to $4.1 billion, as per Forbes’ analysis.
President Trump’s sweeping tariffs, announced on April 2, sparked market turmoil. The next day, stocks endured their worst single-day decline in five years, with the S&P 500 falling nearly 5%, the Dow dropping 1,679 points, and the Nasdaq plummeting 6%.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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