The 10 biggest billionaire losers of the tariff war so far

Billionaires

The tariff news sent stock markets tumbling on Thursday, with the S&P 500 index down 5%. That rout wiped a collective $270 billion from the fortunes of billionaires. Here is who lost the most.
Mark Zuckerberg (left), Jeff Bezos (center) and Elon Musk (right) at Donald Trump's inauguration in January, alongside Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Bezos' fiancée Lauren Sánchez. Zuckerberg, Bezos and Musk are wearing a suit and tie, Pichai is wearing a black blazer and Sánchez is wearing a white blazer.

Mark Zuckerberg (left), Jeff Bezos (center) and Elon Musk (right) at Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, alongside Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez.

Getty Images

Editor’s note: This article was updated after the stock market close at 4 pm Eastern time on April 3, 2025.

President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that the U.S. would impose a flat 10% tariff on every country in the world, with higher rates for many of America’s largest trading partners including China, India, Japan, South Korea, the U.K. and the European Union.

The news sent stock markets tumbling around the world on Thursday, with the S&P 500 index down 5% and the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite down 6%. Stock markets in Japan, Hong Kong and Europe also suffered losses.

That rout wiped a collective $270 billion from the fortunes of the world’s 3,000 billionaires. The biggest losers so far are the very richest people in the world, particularly those who have cozied up to Trump in recent times.

No one has been hit harder than Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose fortune is down by $17.9 billion since yesterday’s stock market close, as shares of the Facebook parent plummeted by 9%. Zuckerberg, who sat next to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk at Trump’s inauguration in January after Meta donated to Trump’s inaugural committee, has also met with the president at the White House several times since then—most recently on Wednesday.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg attends the 60th inaugural ceremony where Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president on January 20, 2025, in the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC. (Photo by Ricky Carioti / POOL / AFP) (Photo by RICKY CARIOTI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

The second-biggest loser so far? Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who has recently tried to grow closer to Trump, sitting in the second row behind the president at his inauguration in January after Amazon donated to Trump’s inaugural committee. In February, he announced the Washington Post—which he bought for $250 million in 2013—would change its opinion pages to focus on supporting personal liberties and free markets.

A month later, he opined on tariffs, saying in an X post that the opinion pages would cover “the damaging and distorting effects if tariffs are used to pick winners and losers.” With Amazon shares down 9%, Bezos is $16 billion poorer on Thursday.

Larry Ellison, the founder of software giant Oracle, is down $9.9 billion, thanks to a 6% drop in Oracle stock. (He’s also a major shareholder in Tesla.) Unlike Bezos and Zuckerberg, Ellison has long been a major donor to Republicans, and he hosted a fundraiser for Trump in 2020 and dined with him at his Palm Beach club Mar-A-Lago last year. In January, he joined the president to announce a planned $500 billion investment in AI data centers in the U.S. alongside OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son.

Former Executive Chairman of Fox Corp Rupert Murdoch and Oracle co-founder, CTO and Executive Chairman Larry Ellison listen as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on February 03, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and Trump’s right-hand-man at the Department of Government Efficiency, is taking a beating, too. He has lost $8.7 billion, the fifth-most in dollar terms among billionaires, with Tesla shares slumping by more than 5% after a rough week in which the automaker announced its sales dropped by 13% in the first three months of the year.

Meanwhile, French luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault, who was the world’s richest person until last year, suffered an $8.6 billion loss as shares in his conglomerate LVMH dipped by nearly 6%.

Arnault made a public display of support for Trump in January, attending his inauguration alongside two of his five children, who are all executives at LVMH. Besides Bezos and Zuckerberg, many other tech barons—including Michael Dell, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin—also saw steep losses.

At least five billionaires have fallen out of the ranks entirely today. The biggest loser in percentage terms has been RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) CEO Gary Friedman, whose net worth has fallen by 37%, to about $730 million. Shares in the upscale furniture firm have plunged by 40%, wiping $435 million from Friedman’s fortune.

World’s top luxury group LVMH head Bernard Arnault (R) and his son, CEO of LVMH Holding Company, Antoine Arnault (L) attend the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair in Paris, on June 15, 2023. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP) (Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images)

Other dropoffs made their fortunes in the clothing industry, which could also be hard-hit by tariffs: The U.S. is the largest importer of apparel in the world, sourcing most apparel from Asia, including 21% from China and 18% from Vietnam.

It’s no surprise then that husband-and-wife duo Kenneth and Yvonne Lo, the Hong Kong-based cofounders of clothing manufacturer Crystal International Group, also have fallen below the $1 billion mark as shares in the Hong Kong-based firm tumbled by 23%. Crystal, which makes clothes for companies including Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, Nike, Adidas and Puma, relied on North America for 38% of its revenues in 2024.

Brian Hill, the founder of Vancouver-based women’s fashion retailer Aritzia, also saw his net worth fall below $1 billion as the firm’s stock cratered by 20%.

And how is Trump faring amid the market upheaval? Not so bad. The president’s net worth is down by $40 million, to $4.6 billion, as shareholders pushed the price of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., the parent company of his social media outfit Truth Social, down 3%, less than overall market’s decline.

Here are the 10 biggest billionaire losers as of the market close:
10. Thomas Peterffy

Source of wealth: Discount brokerage

Net worth: $48.4 billion

Loss: -$4.1 billion

9. Sergey Brin

Source of wealth: Google

Net worth: $121.2 billion

Loss: -$4.6 billion

8. Larry Page

Source of wealth: Google

Net worth: $126.4 billion

Loss: -$4.9 billion

7. Jensen Huang

Source of wealth: Semiconductors

Net worth: $89.3 billion

Loss: -$7.4 billion

6. Bernard Arnault

Source of wealth: LVMH

Net worth: $154 billion

Loss: -$8.6 billion

5. Elon Musk

Source of wealth: Tesla, SpaceX

Net worth: $378.1 billion

Loss: -$8.7 billion

4. Michael Dell

Source of wealth: Dell Technologies

Net worth: $84.9 billion

Loss: -$9.4 billion

3. Larry Ellison

Source of wealth: Oracle

Net worth: $172.5 billion

Loss: -$9.9 billion

2. Jeff Bezos

Source of wealth: Amazon

Net worth: $196.2 billion

Loss: -$16 billion

1. Mark Zuckerberg

Source of wealth: Facebook

Net worth: $184.1 billion

Loss: -$17.9 billion


This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.

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