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.

Non-paywall link

    • Also only meaningful if they can’t buy up actual, tangible assets in the coming recessions, effectively converting their dead capital into more assets. (+ getting more state money for being “too big to fail”)

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        No, they’re gonna. It’s exactly what happened last recession. The pain got offshored to the workers, and the people with assets used the moment to leverage their assets to buy more assets on the cheap.

        • NeonNight@lemm.ee
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          Yep, every time the US is in an economic low period, the top 1% snatch up swathes of assets for cheap. It’s how we went from 1 billionaire, to several, then several billionaires to hundreds in the last ~20 years

        • errer@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          These companies will absolutely use these things as excuses to replace workers with AI chatbots.

    • danc4498@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Stocks will always bounce back. But the people that live off their 401ks now have to sell at a loss to survive.

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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      Yes, the more they lose the more we win.

      PERSONAL AUSTERITY!!! SAVE YOUR MONEY AND LET THE RICH GO FUCK THEMSELVES!!!

      • piratekaiser@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        You don’t win by them just losing some money. Redistribution is the name of the game. Even if Tesla hits 0/share, you aren’t getting any more wealth just by virtue of that happening.

        …Aside from basking in the downfall of a nazi of course, but those are priceless things.

  • redlemace@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    So what? It’s not like their bank accounts got affected. Their shares are valued less which means they did not loose money but the lost money they could have had.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      They lost pretend money that could be used for business loans that they don’t need because they have so much pretend money. The only time it matteds for these parasites is if it happens when they are acquiring another company worth billions of pretend monies.

      Even a stock market collapse is a benefit to these chucklefucks.

      • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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        The only time it matters for them is when an Italian plumber shows up to collect their debt.

      • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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        Everything‘s on discount for them now! Time to buy up some cheap stock and failing businesses.

        They win no matter what.

        • Kyouki@lemmy.world
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          Always stood by for, with (fake) money you can make more (fake) money.

          The issue is mostly getting towards that money first for us normies who aren’t born into RNG.

    • Captain Janeway@lemmy.world
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      They basically use that “money” as collateral for low interest loans. So it impacts how much they can physically buy. It’s a good thing.

    • freebee@sh.itjust.works
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      Some of them (ahum you know which one) did lose actual value: the entire credibility of their biggest brands are down the drain for years to come… In that way the stockprices do really show that they are losing out. Some others really are losing (sort of) equal access to big important markets… The loss is real, even tho I agree with the sentiment of your post, the lowering stocks predict lowering income, lowering dividends which these people expect to rake in eternally to keep their billionaire lifestyle afloat, etc. They are slowly becoming less wealthy from the shennanigans. Not quick enough tho. A billionaire is a thing that just shouldn’t be allowed to exist ever anywhere.

    • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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      Them losing billions is meaningless. Don’t for this: if you had 1 billion dollars, and you lost 99% of it, you still have 10 million dollars, which is more than what most people will ever have.

      Their entire industries need to be nationalized and ALL their assets seized.

  • JacksonLamb@lemmy.world
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    Coverage like this makes me feel sad.

    Do people honestly not realise that billionaires always enrich themselves during recessions?

    This is all going to plan for oligarchs. People celebrating it are naive unfortunately.

    • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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      I would say most of it is meaningless other than Elon and specifically Tesla, Tesla stock prices plumetting will remove most of the power from Elon in the future, even Trump might turn on him once his main thing his net worth evaporates

  • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
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    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.

    • DokPsy@lemmy.world
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      Small but important point. We’ve been an oligarchy for a while now. We’re just losing the pretense of it being a democracy.

  • limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    Comparing my net worth to that total net worth? I’d be upset, but not terribly so, if I lost $1000 too.

    But since I would be getting it back later, and then some, it’s more like a small investment only . Definitely worth the small risk,

  • venotic@kbin.melroy.org
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    But to them this is winning, right? Anything to “own the libs” that they so hate. There’s no such thing as failing, there’s only failing forwards.

  • MochiGoesMeow@lemmy.zip
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    I know were in for a world of pain with the stocks tanking. But honestly don’t mind that they lose even more. Lose everything. Burn with us.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    I’m sure they will be able to weather the storm. I bet they could find a way to get by on “only” a billion, let’s say.

  • AreaKode@lemmy.world
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    They don’t care. Stock prices only matter when purchasing and when selling. The day to day up and down has no affect on their direct worth.

    • wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io
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      False - these billionaires use their stock as collateral for loans. It’s all part of a tax avoidance scheme. If the stock goes down significantly, the banks come knocking.

      Both of the billionaires pictured also head their companies in some way or another. Investors can vote to throw them out. Not that they would, but even the vote of no confidence is not a good look.

      • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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        Banks may come to them, but hardly knocking with demands. ‘If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.’ And how they interact with banks, loans, etc. is far different in scale and method than the average consumer anyway.