Bill Gates, left, and Jeff Bezos.(AP)
The world’s billionaires are a little less rich following Monday morning’s stock market chaos.
A shaky start to the week that included a 15-minute suspension of trading cost Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates — the country’s two richest men — $8 billion, according to Forbes.
Bezos, the chief executive officer of Amazon, took a $4.5 billion hit while Microsoft’s co-founder Gates saw his fortunes shrink by $3.5 billion. The tech industry pioneers are still worth $112.4 billion and $104.6 billion respectively.
The devastating 2,000-point plummet reportedly cost the world’s five richest people more than $20 billion combined.
The biggest loser was French businessman and luxury goods peddler Berbarn Arnault, whose family lost an estimated $6 billion. Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, the 11th richest person on Earth, was the only billionaire ranked in Forbes’ top 13 who didn’t post a loss. He’s still worth over $56 billion.
Jim, Alice and Rob Walton, ranked 14th, 15th and 16th respectively, posted gains of roughly $100 million despite the unrest on Wall Street.
The stock market’s ongoing volatility began last week as uncertainly around the spread of coronavirus left investors worried about trade matters including production in China, where virus is believed to have begun. A dispute between Saudi Arabia and Russia regarding oil sales helped to drive Monday’s markets into a tailspin.
More than 113,000 people have tested positive for the deadly virus, which has claimed nearly 4,000 lives, according to a running update from Johns Hopkins University.
