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At the start of the year, the world’s wealthiest individuals were seeing their fortunes grow at an astonishing rate—an estimated $10 billion in daily gains throughout January.
But just a month later, the rally has reversed, with a combined $138 billion erased from the net worths of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison.
The downturn marks a sharp shift for billionaire investors, particularly in the tech sector, where many saw their valuations soar to record highs in early 2024.
But as market volatility increases, fueled in part by the rise of a disruptive new AI company, many of those same fortunes are now contracting at an unprecedented pace.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, losses are piling up across the board. Musk, who began February with an estimated net worth of $433 billion, now stands at $349 billion. Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, has dropped from $243 billion to $232 billion. Oracle chairman Larry Ellison, who briefly ranked among the top three richest individuals, has shed nearly $9 billion.
The sudden reversal has left analysts and investors questioning whether this is a temporary setback or the start of a more prolonged correction.
What we know
Much of the turbulence stems from the unexpected ascent of DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence firm whose latest innovation, the R1 model, has sent shockwaves through the industry. DeepSeek’s low-cost, high-performance AI system has intensified competition in an already crowded space, rattling dominant players like Nvidia and Meta.
The fallout has been particularly severe for Nvidia. The company’s market capitalization plummeted by a staggering $600 billion after investors reacted to DeepSeek’s rapid rise. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, once among the world’s wealthiest executives, saw his personal fortune drop by more than $20 billion, leaving him with a net worth of $103 billion.
The ripple effects extended beyond Nvidia. Oracle’s Ellison recorded a $27.6 billion loss after his company’s stock fell 14%, pushing him from the third to the fifth-richest person in the world. Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell saw his wealth shrink by $12.4 billion, while Google co-founder Larry Page lost $6.3 billion. Even Google investor Andreas von Bechtolsheim suffered a $5.4 billion decline.
What you should know
For the average investor, such losses would be catastrophic. But for the world’s wealthiest individuals, the declines—though significant represent only a fraction of their massive fortunes. Even after shedding nearly $90 billion this year, Musk remains the richest person in the world.
Despite the volatility, industry leaders are signaling confidence in the long-term trajectory of AI and tech innovation. On a recent earnings call, Huang acknowledged DeepSeek’s disruptive impact, calling the company’s advancements “world-class” and its open-source AI model a breakthrough that has “ignited global enthusiasm.”