Billionaires lose $208bn in a single day as Trump tariffs rock global markets - Arabian Business: Latest News on the Middle East, Real Estate, Finance, and More

​Billionaires worldwide lost $208 billion in a single day due to Trump’s tariffs, with the Middle East being the only region with net gains. US billionaires, including Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, were among the hardest hit, with Bezos losing $15.9 billion.

The world’s 500 richest people reportedly saw their combined wealth plummet by $208 billion on Thursday, as broad tariffs announced by President Donald Trump sent global markets into a tailspin.

The drop is the fourth-largest one-day decline in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index’s 13-year history, and the largest since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Middle East, however, was the only region where those on Bloomberg’s wealth index eked out net gains for the day.

More than half of those tracked by Bloomberg’s wealth index saw their fortunes tumble, with an average decline of 3.3 per cent.

Billionaires in the US were among the hardest hit, with Meta Platforms Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos leading the way.

Shares of Jeff Bezos-promoted Amazon plunged 9 per cent on Thursday, their biggest drop since April 2022, costing the tech giant’s founder $15.9 billion in personal wealth.

The company’s stock is down more than 25 per cent from its February peak.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and a close ally of Trump, has lost $110 billion so far this year – including $11 billion on Thursday – as lagging deliveries and his controversial role as Trump’s efficiency czar have hammered the electric-vehicle manufacturer’s stock.

Bernard Arnault, Europe’s richest person, saw his net worth getting wiped off by $6 billion. With the European Union is bracing for a new 20 per cent flat tariff on all products bound for the US, which is expected to hurt exports of alcohol and luxury goods, among other things. Arnault’s LVMH, a conglomerate which owns brands including Christian Dior, Bulgari and Loro Piana, saw its shares fall in Paris on Thursday.

Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man, was among a small group of billionaires outside the US who escaped the tariffs’ impact.

The Mexican Bolsa rose 0.5 per cent after the country was excluded from the White House’s list of reciprocal tariff targets, pushing Slim’s net worth up by about 4 per cent to $85.5 billion.