An index that tracks how much the richest people in the world are worth paints a grim picture of how the beginning of 2022 has fared for the most wealthy.
What Happened: The Bloomberg Billionaires Index tracks the net worth of the richest people in the world. Their wealth is determined by the value of stocks the billionaires own and other assets.
The top ten billionaires have lost a large amount of money in 2022 with several of the largest companies seeing their shares turn negative year-to-date.
Here are the top ten richest people in the world and how much they have gained or lost in value year-to-date in 2022.
1. Elon Musk, Tesla Inc TSLA +2.08%: $220 billion, -$50.0 billion
2. Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Inc AMZN +3.11% founder: $169 billion, -$23.4 billion
3. Bernard Arnault, LVMH: $162 billion, -$16.1 billion
4. Bill Gates, Microsoft Corp MSFT +2.81% co-founder: $128 billion, -$9.9 billion
5. Larry Page, Alphabet Inc GOOG +3.23%GOOGL +3.37% co-founder: $119 billion, -$9.5 billion
6. Serge Brin, Alphabet co-founder: $114 billion, -$9.2 billion
7. Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Inc NYSEBRKANYSEBRKB: $113 billion, +$4.5 billion
8. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Platforms FB +2.4%: $113 billion, -$12.7 billion
9. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft co-founder: $110 billion, -$9.4 billion
10. Larry Ellison, Oracle Corp ORCL +0.9%: $98.2 billion, -$9.0 billion
Collectively, the top ten billionaires have lost $144.7 billion in value just one month into 2022, an average loss of $14.5 billion. Only Warren Buffett has a positive year-to-date gain in net worth, according to the report.
Why It’s Important: The valuation of many top technology and growth stocks have fallen in 2022, and it is shown on this list. The stock price of names like Tesla, Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft represents a large portion of calculating the net worth of the individuals on the list.
Buffett is the only positive gainer on the list, and he has passed Zuckerberg so far in 2022 by net worth and is set to move up additional positions.
Buffett’s rise comes as investors are looking for value stocks, which favors the likes of Berkshire Hathaway. A significant ownership stake in shares of Apple Inc AAPL +6.98% has also boosted the valuation of Berkshire, with Apple shares gaining on strong earnings last week.
A deeper dive into the billionaires list shows that only four of the top 25 names on the list have positive gains in net worth so far in 2022, with Buffett, Gautam Adani, Michael Dell and Zeng Yuqun the gainers year-to-date.
