Trump tariff impact: World’s 500 richest people suffered biggest two-day loss
Apr 05, 2025 11:22 AM IST
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg faced the largest losses, totaling $31 billion and $27 billion respectively.
The world’s richest people just had a brutal couple of days. After US President Donald Trump announced new tariffs, markets around the world went into a tailspin. Between Thursday (April 3) and Friday, the 500 wealthiest individuals lost a jaw-dropping US$536 billion combine, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed.
Elon Musk speaks as US President Donald Trump listens in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on February 11, 2025. (REUTERS)
The S&P 500 dropped 10.5% in just two days, and the Nasdaq wasn’t far behind with an 11.4% fall.
Friday was especially painful, with US$329 billion wiped out — the biggest one-day drop since the chaos of the Covid-19 pandemic. Nearly 90% of the billionaires saw their fortunes shrink, losing an average of 3.5% each, Bloomberg reported.
Leading the list of losses was the world’s richest person Elon Musk. Tesla’s stock plunged more than 10% on Friday alone, which knocked US$31 billion off Musk’s net worth. That brings his total loss for the year to a staggering US$130 billion. Not far behind was Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, who lost US$27 billion after his company’s shares fell nearly 14% in just two days, it reported.
Then there’s Ernest Garcia III, the man behind used-car platform Carvana. He lost US$2 billion in the same period — enough to drop him off the global top 500 rich list altogether, thanks to a 28% crash in Carvana’s stock.
But not everyone had a bad day. Nike co-founder Phil Knight actually walked away with a small win on Friday. After Donald Trump said he had a “very productive call” with Vietnam’s leader — hinting at the possible removal of a 46% tariff on Vietnamese goods (where Nike does a lot of its manufacturing) — the shoe brand’s stock rose 2.8%. That uptick added US$84 million to Knight’s fortune, partially making up for the US$3 billion hit he took a day earlier.
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim had a bit of a rollercoaster ride, too. On Thursday, he stayed afloat as Mexico was left out of the new tariff targets — a small win that lifted the country’s stock market. But the joy was short-lived. By Friday, Slim lost US$5.5 billion as the Mexican market reversed course and dropped nearly 5%.
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