Trump’s Covid diagnosis, tech-stock tumble fail to wipe out week’s big gains by Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk

The early Friday announcement that the US President and Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have been tested Covid positive hit many tech companies. For instance, Tesla’s share fell 7 per cent while Amazon was down 3 per cent and Facebook tumbled 2.5 per cent. While this wiped off the net worth of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg by $6.2 billion, $5.2 billion, and $2.4 billion respectively on Friday, but this wasn’t enough to totally completely wipe out earlier gains of tech titans, Forbes reported. In fact, they ended the week richer than the week before.

According to Forbes Real-Time Billionaire list, Zuckerberg’s net worth increased by $1.9 billion, Bezos’ was up by $1.7 billion while Musk added $1.4 billion to his wealth between September 25 and October 2. The trio’s net worth, as on October 4, was $95.6 billion, $184.3 billion, and $87.3 billion respectively. The biggest gainers in the past week were Chinese real estate company Evergrande Group’s Chairman Hui Ka Yan whose net worth rose 43 per cent by $7.8 billion as on September 25 to $33.2 billion as on Friday. Luxury goods brand LVMH’s Chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault was the second biggest gainer. His net worth increased by $3.2 billion to $115.5 billion.

While Bezos remained the richest person on Earth, Bernard Arnault & Family with $115.3 billion net worth, Bill Gates with $115.1 billion wealth, Mukesh Ambani with $86 billion net worth, Warren Buffett having $479.9 billion net worth were other richest billionaires on the list as on Sunday, as per the Forbes Real-Time Billionaire list.

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Trump, amid the ongoing re-election presidential campaign, was admitted to the US’s premier military hospital Walter Reed in Washington for the treatment. However, in a video tweet on Saturday night, he said that he was feeling much better even as the next few days, according to Trump, would be the “real test.” “I think I’ll be back soon and I look forward to finishing up the campaign the way it was started,” he said in his video message.