Tech Titans lose $138bn as AI disruption shakes market
BY MOTOLANI OSENI
At the start of 2024, the world’s wealthiest individuals were amassing fortunes at an astonishing pace, raking in an estimated $10 billion daily in January. But just weeks later, the tide has turned, erasing a staggering $138 billion from the net worths of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison.
The abrupt market shift has hit billionaire investors hard, particularly in the tech sector, where valuations soared to record highs before plunging amid rising volatility.
A major trigger for the downturn is the disruptive entry of DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence firm whose groundbreaking R1 model has rattled industry giants, intensifying competition in an already saturated space.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the losses are significant. Musk, who started February with an estimated $433 billion, now stands at $349 billion. Zuckerberg has seen his wealth shrink from $243 billion to $232 billion, while Ellison, once ranked among the top three richest individuals, has shed nearly $9 billion.
READ ALSO: E-paper: 10 things you need to know on The DailytimesNGR
Nvidia, one of the biggest casualties, has seen its market value plummet by $600 billion in reaction to DeepSeek’s rise. CEO Jensen Huang, who was among the world’s wealthiest executives, has suffered a personal loss of more than $20 billion, bringing his net worth down to $103 billion.
The ripple effect has spread across the tech industry. Oracle’s Ellison lost $27.6 billion after his company’s stock fell 14%, pushing him from the third to the fifth-richest person globally. Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell has seen his wealth shrink by $12.4 billion, while Google co-founder Larry Page lost $6.3 billion. Even Google investor Andreas von Bechtolsheim recorded a $5.4 billion decline.
For ordinary investors, such losses would be devastating. But for the tech billionaires, the declines—while significant—represent only a fraction of their massive fortunes. Despite losing nearly $90 billion this year, Musk remains the world’s richest person.
Amid the turbulence, industry leaders remain optimistic about the long-term trajectory of AI and tech innovation. On a recent earnings call, Huang acknowledged DeepSeek’s disruptive impact, calling the company’s advancements “world-class” and its open-source AI model a breakthrough that has “ignited global competition.”
