investors out of riskier assets, causing the fortunes of numerous ultra-rich tech billionaires to take a major hit.Getty ImagesThe Nasdaq Composite tanked 2.3% by 3:40 p.m. ET, its worst day since February 21; the higher-growth grouping faltered as concerns about the U.S.’ macro conditions mounted.
Driving the losses were the seven mega-cap tech stocks which largely contributed to the market’s blockbuster gains throughout 2023, as Apple , Microsoft , Alphabet , Amazon , Nvidia , Meta and Tesla each fell. Thanks to the slide, the 10 richest people on the planet lost $26.7 billion collectively, with each top-10 magnate in the red on the day, according toTesla CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, became nearly $5 billion poorer, suffering the biggest hit to his fortune of anyone Wednesday.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Oracle chairman Larry Ellison also grew billions of dollars less wealthy Wednesday but still rank among the 10 richest people on the planet.its rating for some of the U.S.’s long-term debt offerings from AAA to AA+, one of the only such debt rating revisions in recent history.