2mo ago

Tech CEOs who grinned behind Trump at inauguration lose billions in wake of tariffs

www.independent.co.uk

Summary

Tech moguls who supported Donald Trump—including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—lost billions after his “Liberation Day” tariff announcement triggered historic market losses. Standing behind Trump at his inauguration, they had backed his deregulation promises.

Meta dropped 8.96%, Amazon 8.98%, Apple over 9%, and Tesla 5.47%, wiping $208B from global billionaire wealth. Musk lost $8.7B, Bezos $16B, Zuckerberg $17.9B.

Despite their support, their companies face price hikes and AI infrastructure risks.

China’s 34% retaliatory tariffs intensify fears of a looming recession.

United States | News & Politics @lemmy.ml

geneva_convenience @lemmy.ml

2mo ago

Tech CEOs who grinned behind Trump at inauguration lose billions in wake of tariffs

www.independent.co.uk /news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tariff-bezos-musk-zuckerberg-b2727147.html

United States | News & Politics @midwest.social

BrikoX @lemmy.zip

2mo ago

Tech CEOs who grinned behind Trump at inauguration lose billions in wake of tariffs

www.independent.co.uk /news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tariff-bezos-musk-zuckerberg-b2727147.html

29 comments

They knew this was going to happen. They'll be fine. It's their workers and smaller competitors that won't be fine.
- Idk, someone that makes their workers pee in bottles to save a couple of bucks probably cares about billions disappearing. I'm not sure they knew this was going to happen. I hope they see how trump is going to treat them like Putin treats his oligarchs soon.
  
  ...did billions disappear, or are they just paying a lot of money to own an entire country? Short-term cost for long-term gain.
  
  He can weather some billions disappearing, buy up the assets of the people who couldn't weather it, and emerge even wealthier on the rebound.
  
  They almost certainly expected it. That's why they've tried to cosy up to him, to get exemptions for their businesses.
  
  it is nothing unless the stock price drop so low that it hit their bank loans,

Everyone needs to understand this:
The oligarchs want a repeat of 2020. They WANT the economy to suffer and for people to suffer. Because then they can buy up property and companies/IPs for dirt cheap while still benefiting from upper middle class people spending money to try to keep the voices from overwhelming them. So "struggle" through the bad times while buying everything and then clean up when the market recovers.
The big question is whether trump's fucking stupidity is something we can recover from. No country is going to trust us or make any long term plans with us going forward because there is every chance that our entire model toward international relations will change every four years (ha. as though we are having elections ever again).
- I know you said 2020, which was the year Brexit occurred, but I think many people thinking of 2020 would think of the pandemic. The thing is, though, that Brexit is the example from 2020, because just like our current situation, the conservative politicians lied that they were going to help the average person. Then, they convinced the UK to leave the EU, which tanked the British economy.
  The average person suffered. Small businesses went bankrupt. Meanwhile, the ultra wealthy used the time to purchase whatever they wanted at cheap prices, predicting that eventually the economy would recover. They were fine because of their vast resources, so this gives them the chance to steal all of the future profits from people of lower classes.
  Ultra wealthy people become ultra wealthy by stealing money from other people. Their employees bring much, much more value than they are compensated. They receive government subsidies which are largely funded by average people. And this is just one more example. They intentionally tank the economy so that they can steal from people who get into short term binds. They steal all of their future profits.
- The big question is whether trump's fucking stupidity is something we can recover from
  Regardless of how things turn out in the long term, I'm certain that there are already things that we've lost and will never get back. Particularly with regards to the reckless destruction of our federal workforce.
  He's already irreparably damaged this country.
- The upper middle class is going to be the people who loose.
  They're going to have to sell off their extra homes, which will be quickly bought up by the oligarchs.
  This is what upward wealth transfer looks like.

When 3,000 people own more than half the wealth in existence they stop caring about money and trade it for raw power.
The oligarchs can weather this storm to buy up the last of all property.
Nothing will improve until we start killing them.

This is like saying a gambler at a casino lost $10,000
That's a lot of money to you and me
That means nothing to a rich man with millions.
Sure they lost billions .... but they still have billions more.
They want the US to fracture and break because they'll be able to buy the remnants for nothing to start their own kingdoms.
- Thank you! This reporting is dogshit. Those oligarchs are experiencing paper losses of like 5% of their net worth, which is HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
  None of this is a loss, this is WHY they paid millions to trump. They arent fucking morons who didn't believe project 2025 was real. They cosigned it and are getting the returns now.
  American labor is completely defenseless and soon to be wholly devalued but don't worry, Jeff bozos is 1% less wealthy thanks to the failing market that 10 million people were relying on to retire soon.
  Haha take that oligarchs, now we all have to work for you until we die while having no means of escape.
  The news media is just fattening pigs for slaughter at this point.
- In one sense, yes, you're right.
  But I don't think you're taking how broken the billionaire psyche is into account. The reason they fight to get so much more than they already have, in addition already having more than many countries even need, is because to them it's not money anymore. It's a scoreboard telling them who's winning and who's not. Anything that causes them to move down the scoreboard, despite literally not affecting their lives at all, freaks them out.
  It's why they buy off Congress to pay fewer and fewer taxes. Even though their lifestyles would be unaffected by more taxes, they can't tolerate someone else being richer than them.
  
  That's in the system we're used to. They're banking on now taking over the entire fucking thing. Losing some fake money to gain all of the real power is definitely what they're lining up for.

- You think billionaires care about a rounding error? They're still rich enough to buy most governments, and the mere concept of not being able to afford islands, mansions on every continent, and a private jet to fly between them is still non-existent.
  It's the bottom 99% who have to worry.

The billionaires didn't "lose" anything. Their wealth is tied to the stocks they hold, and shares have zero actual value until they're sold.
In other words, the billionaires are only billionaires on paper. Their actual, real worth is much less than that even in the best of times. What they do have, that their fake billions allows them to do, is the ability to dodge taxes. And that's why we should hate them, not because of some fictional wealth figure attached to them.
- They hold value as collateral for loans. They're not completely valueless. Though it would be neat to see a margin call on Lonnie