Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg lose $45 billion in net worth in worst rout since pandemic

The US markets came under intense selling pressure after President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs threatening fears of recession and inflation spiking up in the world's biggest economy.

World's richest individual Elon Musk saw his net worth decline by $11 billion to $322 billion, data from Bloomberg Billionaires index showed. Shares of Elon Musk-owned Tesla declined 5.47% to close at $267.28 on Thursday.

Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon saw his net worth fall by $15.9 billion to $201 billion, Bloomberg Billionaires index showed. Shares of Amazon dropped by 9% to close at $178.41. Its market capitalisation declined to $1.89 trillion, data from Nasdaq showed.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, lost $17.9 billion in net worth in Thursday's stock market crash. His net worth declined to $189 billion after shares of Meta dropped 9% to close at $531.62 on the Nasdaq. Meta's market capitalisation came down to $1.35 trillion.

The US markets crashed on Thursday with Dow Jones, Nasdaq and S&P500 posting their worst single-day performance since pandemic.

US small-cap stocks were among the worst hit, with the small-cap benchmark Russell 2000 entering the bear market, closing 6.59% lower at 1,910.55.

Traders were rattled by the severity of a new baseline 10% tariff on imported goods and reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries that President Trump said had unfair trade barriers.