Here's how much Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos lost in the stock market plunge
On Monday, Feb. 5, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted, and at one moment, fell nearly 1,600 points, making it the biggest single-day point drop in history. And as U.S. stocks slipped and slid, so did the wealth of the world's richest.
The fortunes of the super-rich, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, were hit hard on Monday. Bloomberg crunched the numbers and found that Buffett, nicknamed the "Oracle of Omaha" for his investing prowess, lost the most at $5.1 billion. Currently, Buffett boasts a net worth of $85 billion.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced the second biggest loss with a $3.6 billion decline in his fortune on Monday. The world's richest man — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — also faced the wrath of the sinking stock market and lost $3.3 billion, leaving him with a net worth of $116 billion.
Other wealthy individuals who saw billion-dollar losses on Monday include Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who lost $2.2 billion, and Zara founder Amancio Ortega (who was at one point the world's richest person), who lost $1.2 billion, according to the index. The figures in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index are updated at the close of every trading day in New York.
Overall, 18 billionaires in the ranking lost more than $1 billion on Monday, according to Bloomberg.
Many gave away more than that in 2017
However, some of the super-rich who suffered billion-dollar losses Monday likely aren't reeling from the stock market's suffering — many of them gave away almost as much or more in 2017.
A new report compiled by the Chronicle of Philanthropy reveals that charitable giving by the top 50 donors in the U.S. more than doubled in 2017, skyrocketing to $14.7 billion from 2016's $5.6 billion. This indicates a strong U.S. economy and that the wealthy are "flush with cash," CNBC reports.
Topping the list is Bill and Melinda Gates, with a $4.8 billion donation to their namesake foundation — that's over double what Gates lost on Feb. 5. Michel Dell and his wife Susan gave $1 billion to their own foundation, according to the list, scoring them the third spot in the ranking. In comparison, Dell lost $345 million during Monday's stock market slip.
Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan ranked second on the Philanthropy 50 list, with their donation of $2 billion, a little more than half as much as the tech entrepreneur's Monday loss.
In July, Buffett made headlines when he reportedly donated 18.6 million Class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway, then worth $3.17 billion, to five different foundations. That's also more than half of what Buffett lost on Feb. 5, according to Bloomberg's index.
But Buffett has always had a "buy-and-hold" attitude when it comes to times of uncertainty.
"Don't watch the market closely," Buffett previously told CNBC in response to those worried about their retirement savings during wild market fluctuations in 2016. "If they're trying to buy and sell stocks, and worry when they go down a little bit … and think they should maybe sell them when they go up, they're not going to have very good results."
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