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Share prices in America’s stock markets largely rebounded on Wednesday after several sessions of steep losses, none more so in technology-related companies which have taken a battering of late.
From AI profitability concerns, political uncertainty over everything from tariffs to supply chains and a wider conversation over whether valuations had risen too high in any case, many of the world’s biggest companies such as Tesla and Nvidia have already seen their valuations plummet in 2025.
That has also been the case for the wider markets themselves, with the Nasdaq composite and S&P 500 both in negative territory for the year so far.
And as a result, significant shareholders of those companies have in turn lost what most of us would consider an absolute fortune – with the top ten US-based technology bosses seeing their worth tumble by a combined $217bn (£168bn) so far this year.
Of the ten, only two are in the green for 2025 so far, while one, Tesla chief Elon Musk, has lost $113bn (£87bn) even after Tesla bounced back more than 7.5 per cent in Wednesday trading.
That includes Mr Musk losing $29bn (£22bn) in a single day on Monday as stocks fell sharply, while Benzinga reported that the top ten bosses lost a combined $67bn (£51.7bn) on that day as the group of companies known as the Magnificent Seven saw around $780bn (£602bn) wiped from their market capitalisation values.
The Bloomberg Billionaire Index (BBI) tracks the fortunes of the richest people on the planet on a daily basis, with a significant portion of their worth based on the stock market prices of the companies they founded, work for or invest in – and in many cases, all three.
Despite Mr Musk’s year-to-date decline, he remains top of the pile with a net worth of $319bn (£246bn) – some $100bn clear of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who is in second.
Mr Bezos has lost $19.3bn this year, while Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are down $17.5bn and $16.4bn respectively.
|
Rank |
Name |
CEO/founder/formerly of |
Net worth ($bn) |
2025 change ($bn) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Elon Musk |
Tesla |
319 |
-113 |
|
2 |
Jeff Bezos |
Amazon |
219 |
-19.3 |
|
3 |
Mark Zuckerberg |
Facebook (Meta) |
219 |
+11.3 |
|
4 |
Larry Ellison |
Oracle |
171 |
-21.2 |
|
5 |
Bill Gates |
Microsoft |
160 |
+1.33 |
|
6 |
Larry Page |
Google (Alphabet) |
151 |
-17.5 |
|
7 |
Sergey Brin |
Google (Alphabet) |
142 |
-16.4 |
|
8 |
Steve Ballmer |
Microsoft |
134 |
-12.1 |
|
9 |
Michael Dell |
Dell |
106 |
-17.7 |
|
10 |
Jensen Huang |
Nvidia |
101 |
-12.9 |
Among the top 15 US-based tech founders and bosses covered by the BBI, as of Thursday the two who have not only avoided huge losses but also seen their net worth grow in 2025 are Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, $11.3bn up for the year, and former Microsoft boss Bill Gates, up $1.3bn.
Within the top 20 richest people in the world – not only related to tech or US-based – the person whose fortunes are up the most this year is legendary investor and owner of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet. His worth is $13.4bn up for 2025, while his company have amassed a huge cash pile to spend on further investments.
The richest non-American in the list is fourth-ranked French retail boss Bernard Arnault, who is the chair of the largest group of luxury goods in the world, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton.
In morning pre-trading on Thursday, ahead of the usual afternoon opening of American markets, Tesla shares are projected to drop by more than two per cent again, with Nvidia, Alphabet and Microsoft all down by close to one per cent.
