Tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk were prominent at Donald Trump’s inauguration. Billionaires were expected to be the big winners in a Trump-run America. But so far, their wealth has shrunk dramatically in the first eight weeks of his presidency. Here are the billionaires who have suffered the most.
Donald Trump’s administration includes at least nine billionaires, more than any previous president’s cabinet.
He has many billionaire friends or fans: 16 of them visited him at Mar-a-Lago between the election and the inauguration. Mark Zuckerberg met with Trump at the White House in early February, and on March 12, the Meta CEO reportedly went there again. Yet for now, billionaires haven’t benefited much from a pro-business, pro-capitalist president who is himself a billionaire. From Jan. 20 to March 13, the S&P 500 fell 7.9%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged 11.8%. The decline had a significant impact on America’s wealthiest: The nation’s billionaires lost a combined $415 billion, Forbes calculated.
By contrast, during the same period after Joe Biden took office, the S&P 500 rose 2.4% and the Nasdaq fell 1%. America’s billionaires gained $153 billion, or 3.6%, over the same time frame.
The decline was driven by Trump’s erratic decisions to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico, which created uncertainty, and uncertainty is what business leaders hate most. In addition, Trump’s recent new 25% tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum appear to have set off a trade war—the European Union plans to impose tariffs on U.S. goods starting April 1. More worryingly, in early March, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta predicted that economic growth would shrink by 2.8% in the first quarter, which some have called the “Trumpcession.”
Among the billionaires, no one has been hit as hard as Trump’s right-hand man, Elon Musk.
On January 20, the world’s richest man was worth $434 billion. Since then, however, there have been reports that Tesla’s car sales in Germany, China and Australia fell sharply in the first two months of 2025; analysts at JPMorgan Chase lowered their forecast for Tesla’s car deliveries in the first quarter of 2025 by 20% to 355,000 vehicles, the lowest level since the third quarter of 2022. Meanwhile, protests against Tesla and Musk have broken out outside Tesla stores across the country, some peaceful but others vandalizing. Tesla's stock price has plunged 43% since Trump took office, which has in turn reduced Musk's wealth by $104 billion. Forbes estimated his wealth at $330 billion after the stock market closed on March 13.
Despite a 24% drop in his wealth, he still retains his position as the world's richest man.
Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird Private Wealth Management, believes that the impact on Musk's wealth is not surprising, but it has little to do with Musk's recent multiple positions. “I think Elon’s role in the (Trump) administration probably didn’t help his wealth… but I don’t think it’s the primary reason for the hit,” Mayfield said. “If we were heading for a slowdown, then auto and cyclical sectors would have been hardest hit, and auto is also very vulnerable to cross-border trade and tariffs.” The market rout also hit several other tech stocks hard. The once-powerful “Big Seven” — Tesla, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Apple and Microsoft — have collectively lost more than $1.5 trillion in market value since Jan. 20 amid concerns about a weakening economy. The leaders of several of those companies, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google (now part of Alphabet) co-founder Sergey Brin and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, also attended Trump’s inauguration at the Capitol and took prominent seats among the spectators. Now, those tycoons are among the group that has seen the biggest declines in wealth since that celebration.
Here are the 20 American billionaires who have lost the most wealth since January 20, 2025 (as of the close of the stock market on Thursday, March 13):
1. Elon Musk
Net worth: $330 billion
Decrease: $104 billion
Source of wealth: Tesla, SpaceX
2. Jeff Bezos
Net worth: $210 billion
Decrease: $29 billion
Source of wealth: Amazon
4. Larry Page
Net worth: $136 billion
Decrease: $26 billion
Source of wealth: Alphabet (Google)
5. Sergey Brin
Net worth: $130 billion
Decrease: $24 billion
Wealth: $183 billion
Decrease: $22 billion
Wealth: Oracle
6. Jen-Hsun Huang
Wealth: $101 billion
Decrease: $19 billion
Wealth: Nvidia
7. Michael Dell
Steve Ballmer
Net worth: $97 billion
Decrease: $18 billion
Source of wealth: Dell Computer
9. Steve Schwarzman
Net worth: $42.3 billion
Decrease: $10.2 billion
Source of wealth: Private equity
style="text-align: left;"> 10. Thomas Peterffy
Net worth: $48.8 billion
Loss: $7.9 billion
Source of wealth: Discount brokerage
11. Mark Zuckerberg
Net worth: $204 billion
Loss: $7.6 billion
Source of wealth: Facebook/Meta
12. Rob Walton & family
Net worth: $103 billion
Decrease: $7 billion
Source of wealth: Wal-Mart
14. Alice Walton
Net worth: $94.6 billion
Decrease: $6.8 billion
Source of wealth: Wal-Mart
15. Jim Walton and family
Net worth: $102 billion
Decrease: $6.9 billion
Source of wealth: Wal-Mart
16. 15. Abigail Johnson Net worth: $31.3 billion Loss: $5.6 billion Source: Fidelity Investments 16. Brian Armstrong Net worth: $7.6 billion Loss: $5.2 billion Source: Coinbase 17. Robert Pera Net worth: $14.9 billion 18. MacKenzie Scott Net worth: $27.4 billion Net worth: $4.5 billion Net worth: Amazon 19. George Roberts Net worth: $14.2 billion Net worth: $4.2 billion Net worth: Private equity 20. Lindahl Stephens Grace and family
Net worth: $26.4 billion
Decrease: $4.2 billion
Source of wealth: oil and gas
The author of this article is a Forbes contributor and the content of the article only represents the author's own views.
This article is translated from:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/gracethomas/2025/03/14/heres-how-much-american-billionaires-have-lost-since-trumps-inauguration/
Text: Grace Thomas
Translation: Lemim
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