Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang have both recorded substantial declines in their net worth, amounting to a combined $17 billion, primarily due to the performance of their companies’ shares.
According to Forbes’ real-time billionaires data, Zuckerberg’s net worth fell by $9.6 billion to $162 billion after Meta’s stock dropped by 6% on Wednesday evening, closing at $461.99.
Over the past week, Meta’s stock has declined by 13%. Zuckerberg, who took Facebook public in 2012, now owns about 13% of the company’s stock.
Facebook rebranded to Meta in 2021 to shift its focus to the metaverse. In 2015, Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, pledged to give away 99% of their Meta stake over their lifetimes.
Meanwhile, Jensen Huang experienced a $7.3 billion drop in net worth, reducing his valuation to $103.4 billion following a 7% decline in Nvidia’s share price, which stood at $117.99 on Wednesday evening, and a 13% drop over the last five days. .
Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has served as its CEO and president ever since. He owns approximately 3% of the company, which went public in 1999.
Born in Taiwan, Huang moved to Thailand as a child before his family sent him and his brother to the U.S. amid civil unrest in Asia. Under Huang’s leadership, Nvidia has become a dominant force in computer gaming chips and has expanded to design chips for data centers and autonomous vehicles.
Huang has made significant philanthropic contributions, including $30 million to Stanford for an engineering center and $50 million to Oregon State University for a namesake research center in 2022.
These tech billionaires are not alone in recording losses. Other tech giants, such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, reported a $4.8 billion drop, Dell founder Michael Dell saw a $6.3 billion decline, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk experienced a $4.5 billion depreciation in valuation.
What to know
The drop in tech stocks, which has led to declines in net worth valuations, is attributed to the fall in U.S. technology and semiconductor stocks from their all-time high levels. This decline was spurred by concerns over stricter restrictions on global chip sales to China, triggering a stock rout on Wednesday, July 17. The tech-heavy Nasdaq slumped nearly 2% to hit a two-week low, accompanied by losses on the S&P 500, as major chip and tech stocks were pressured by the prospect of sanctions on companies providing China access to advanced semiconductor technology.
Global markets are highly sensitive to semiconductor supply chain disruptions. The underperformance of tech stocks follows a first half of the year that saw mega caps like Nvidia, Microsoft Corp., and Alphabet Inc. propel the market higher, stretching valuations for these companies and presenting a challenging setup for the remainder of 2024.