Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and seven other tech billionaires lost a collective $575 billion in 2022

The wealth of Ballmer, who was the CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014, is mainly tied up in shares of the tech behemoth. At the end of this year, he was worth $86.2 billion.

In 2022, the company’s growth slowed as it faced less demand for personal computers and a stronger US dollar. Sales of its Windows operating system fell, and its stock followed, falling by 28% over the year. Microsoft told investors to expect weak sales of personal computers into the new year.

Most of Zeng’s wealth comes from his 23% stake in Contemporary Amperex Technology, the largest supplier of electric-vehicle batteries. His net worth rounding out the year was $32.5 billion.

In April, the company reported its sharpest decline in quarterly earnings, with net income falling by 24%. Earlier in the year, prices for nickel, a major component of electric-car batteries, and other raw materials were unstable.

With a net worth of $110 billion at the end of 2022, Gates has investments spread across companies, real estate, and land, but his shares of Microsoft are his most valuable single holding.

Microsoft’s stock lost close to 30% of its value last year, as sales of Windows fell and the company predicted slow growth for its cloud revenue.

Like that of her ex-husband Jeff Bezos, Scott’s net worth suffered from Amazon’s stock drop last year. Most of Scott’s wealth comes from a 3% stake in Amazon, whose shares tumbled by 50% in 2022. As the year ended, she was worth $19 billion.

She said in a blog post in November that she’d given nearly $2 billion this year to 343 organizations supporting underserved communities.

Brin and his cofounder Larry Page lost a collective $89 billion in 2022 as Alphabet and other tech companies dealt with a difficult year for digital advertising. Brin’s net worth sat at $79.5 billion as the year came to a close.

Like Page, Brin gets most of his wealth from his stake in Alphabet, Google’s parent company. 

Both Brin’s and Page’s net worth fell last year as Alphabet struggled with digital advertising. Most of Page’s wealth — he was worth $83.1 billion at the end of the year — comes from his 6% stake in Alphabet.

Alphabet slowed its hiring in 2022, and reportedly cut back on employee travel and offsite perks.

At the end of 2021 Zuckerberg was the sixth-richest person in the world, but he ended 2022 at No. 25 on the list, with $45.6 billion.

Revenue at Meta, formerly Facebook, fell last year as it faced a potential economic recession and a hard year for digital advertising.

Meta laid off 11,000 employees last fall to cut expenses as it works on building the metaverse.

Most of Zhao’s net worth, which sat at $12.6 billion at the end of 2022, comes from his controlling stake in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

Since the collapse of FTX, which sought help from Binance before it filed for bankruptcy, the crypto market has faced scrutiny from investors worried about their assets.

Last month, Binance customers withdrew billions from the crypto platform. Because of the withdrawals and fluctuations in crypto prices, Binance held about $54.7 billion worth of digital assets in mid-December, while over a month earlier it held $69.5 billion worth of assets.

The Department of Justice is said to be investigating the firm over allegations of money laundering.

Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, is still the company’s largest shareholder. But tech stocks fell last year, and the value of Amazon’s shares fell by 50%. Bezos was worth $107 billion as 2022 came to a close.

Musk recently lost his title as the richest person in the world to Bernard Arnault, the CEO of LVMH. Now the second-richest person on Earth, Musk had a fortune of $138 billion at the end of 2022.

A lot of Musk’s wealth is tied up in shares of Tesla. The electric-car maker’s stock plummeted by almost 70% last year, in part because investors grew concerned by Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

Tesla’s stock was also a victim of weakening demand for electric vehicles, specifically in China, one of Tesla’s largest markets.