In Pictures: Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos, these billionaires lost the most in 2022

Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune plunged by $11 billion after his Meta Platforms Inc. reported a second-straight quarter of disappointing earnings, bringing his total wealth loss to more than $87 billion in just 13 months. Zuckerberg, 38, now has a net worth of $38.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a stunning fall from a peak of $142 billion in September 2021. While many of the world’s richest people have seen their fortunes tumble this year, Meta’s chief executive officer has seen the single-biggest hit among those on the wealth list.

In the hours before finalizing his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter Inc., Elon Musk said he bought the social-media platform to help humanity, not to make more money. Indeed, by finalizing the deal, the world’s richest person, who now calls himself “Chief Twit,” took an instant $10 billion hit to his net worth, according to calculations by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk, 51, spent at least $25 billion to follow through on his agreement from April to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, assuming he kept the external investors who’d committed $7.1 billion to the deal.

Jeff Bezos’ wealth plunged by $65.7 billion this year. This comes after Amazon.com Inc. projected sluggish sales for the holiday shopping season, sending shares plunging in after-hours trading. Amazon.com Inc.'s market value briefly fell below $1 trillion. The stock fell as much as 12 per cent on Friday after the e-commerce giant projected the slowest holiday-quarter growth in the company's history, while sales at its important web services business missed estimates. That sent Amazon's market value down to about $995 billion before the stock rebounded and closed with a decline of 6.8 per cent.

The steep stock plunge has wiped billions from the fortunes of some of tech's richest billionaires. Former Alphabet CEO Larry Page is worth an estimated $89.3 billion on Saturday morning. He's down about $29.2 billion this year, making him this year’s fourth biggest billionaire loser, according to Bloomberg Billionaires index.

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Alphabet, the holding company that owns Google, isn't far behind. His fortune fell $38.1 billion to $85.4 billion this year.

MacKenzie Scott is an American philanthropist, activist and novelist. The ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and second-richest man on Earth, she has made a name for herself for her charitable giving having donated a total of $12 billion to date. Most recently, she donated $85 million to Girl Scouts of the USA and 29 of its local branches, according to the Associated Press. Scott’s net worth dropped by about $31.7 billion this year. She is still worth $24.6 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Gates's fortune has fallen by $27.3 billion this year to date, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, leveling out at a net worth of $111billion.

Ma Huateng, CEO of internet company Tencent, saw his fortune slip $23billion to $24 billion in 2022.

Ballmer is the former CEO of Microsoft, the world’s biggest software maker. He stepped down in 2014 and remains a shareholder in the Redmond, Washington-based company, which makes the Windows operating system, the Xbox game console and Surface tablet computers. Ballmer also owns the L.A. Clippers basketball team. Ballmer’s networth plunged $21.3 billion to $84.4 billion in 2022.

Premji is the chairman and largest shareholder of Wipro, an information technology and outsourcing company with more than 220,000 employees. He owns a majority stake of the Bangalore, India-based business after transferring more than $4 billion worth of shares to his foundation and private-equity fund PremjiInvest. Premji’s networth plunged $17.7 billion to $23.6 billion.