Billionaires are feeling the burn amid fallout from Trump’s tariff announcement—with the stock market crash leading to names like Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg losing billions in a matter of hours.
President Donald Trump’s tariffs on more than 180 countries and territories are causing havoc across the global market, with the S&P 500 nearing bear market territory early Monday. These dramatic market declines are hurting investors small and large—from the 401(k) savings accounts of single families to the elaborate holdings of the world’s richest individuals. In fact, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg each lost close to $10 billion by the end of the trading day on Friday alone, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index; the world’s 500 richest people experienced the biggest two-day losses ever on April 3 and 4, thanks in part to popular tech stocks like Nvidia, Amazon, and Meta seeing billions in value wiped out. And even those close to Trump are feeling the pain. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, has lost the most of any person on Earth. On Friday, his net worth declined by $20 billion—with year-to-date declines totaling over $130 billion. Despite the losses, he’s still the world’s richest man. Many signs point to further economic turmoil. European, Asian, and American markets all tumbled to start the trading week and could set the stage for one of the biggest declines in billionaire wealth in memory.
One billionaire is still net-positive in 2025
One widely known billionaire sticks out from the rest due to his stock market gains remaining positive in 2025. Warren Buffett appears to have predicted a market turn coming. He sold some $134 billion in equities in 2024 and was sitting on $334 billion in cash at the end of the year. In 2025, he is up by about $12 billion and is the sixth-richest person in the world, just behind Bill Gates and Bernard Arnault. “We were aided by a predictable large gain in investment income as Treasury Bill yields improved and we substantially increased our holdings of these highly-liquid short-term securities,” Buffett wrote to shareholders in February. While Buffett, too, lost billions last week, his better performance could also be tied to his heads-down approach of staying away from politics—or his simple attitude that prioritizes being thrifty and sensible.
The billionaire club might finally become more exclusive
Buffett is one of the longest-serving members of the billionaire club, a group that saw record growth in 2024—with the wealth of the richest of the rich increasing three times faster than the year before. Moreover, in early January, billionaires were earning some $10 billion a day and holding more wealth than any country except for the U.S. and China. If the stock market conditions continue to trend down, a tide could turn on the growing wealth of billionaires, but the losses may not feel as significant as they may for the Americans who were hoping to retire this year or are struggling to grapple with inflation and a frustrating job market. Nearly three-fourths of all Americans believe wealth inequality is a “serious national issue,” according to a recent survey, and 46% conclude that billionaires hoarding wealth make it harder for ordinary people to achieve the American Dream.
