Summary
Since Trump’s second-term inauguration, five top billionaires have lost a combined $209 billion as markets react to policy uncertainty.
-
Elon Musk’s net worth plunged $148 billion as Tesla shares collapsed amid declining European and Chinese sales.
-
Jeff Bezos lost $29 billion as Amazon stock fell 14%.
-
Sergey Brin’s fortune dropped $22 billion following Alphabet’s weak earnings and regulatory pressure.
-
Mark Zuckerberg and Bernard Arnault each lost $5 billion as Meta and LVMH stocks tumbled.
The S&P 500 is down 6.4%, reversing gains seen post-election.
It remains to be seen if their kissing the ring was strategic or just tactical (apart from Musk, who is committed), but what they’ve bought wasn’t a good economy. They bought into the transition from democracy and capitalism to authoritarian oligarchy.
Dollars don’t describe the value of Russia-level corruption, which is where the country is now pointed. And the longer-term gains from captured institutions would far outpace a hundred billion dollars or two, if they succeed.
Small but important point. We’ve been an oligarchy for a while now. We’re just losing the pretense of it being a democracy.
Technically we’ve been an oligarchy since day 1. It just didn’t have oligarchy vibes.