Trump's tariffs cost the world's richest people more than $23 billion in one day
The announcement of "reciprocal" tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump sent shockwaves through U.S. stock markets, causing the world's wealthiest people to lose billions of dollars in net worth almost overnight.
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On Wednesday, Trump announced a 10 percent baseline tariff on all imported goods from all countries, effective April 5, along with a series of "individualized" tariffs of up to 50 percent for specific countries and regions.
This announcement triggered a collapse in the U.S. stock market: the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq Composite indices each lost more than 5 percent of their value on Friday, following similar losses on Thursday.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, this two-day decline caused the wealth of the world's three richest people—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—to drop by $30.9 billion, $23.49 billion, and $27.34 billion, respectively.
The world's 500 richest people experienced the largest two-day loss ever recorded by the index.
A large portion of the net worth of the top three comes from the value of their own companies: Tesla, Amazon, and Meta.
The newly announced tariffs are hitting tech stocks particularly hard due to the sector's reliance on manufacturing and computer chips from countries such as China, India, and Taiwan.
Trump's announcement pointed to rates aimed at raising the total tariff rate on imported goods to 32 percent for Taiwan, 26 percent for India, and 54 percent for China. CNBC's Jim Cramer stated on Thursday that a potential decline in American economic growth could also hurt advertising revenues for Amazon and Meta.