Nine Tech Billionaires Lost $152 Billion in One Day as Nasdaq 100 Fell Into Correction, Musk Down $80 Billion

Since Tuesday's midterms, the AI-stock selloff that pushed the Nasdaq 100 into a correction Thursday, Nov. 5, has been measured mostly in index points. The wealth tally for the people who own these companies is now in.

The nine richest tech titans lost just over $152 billion combined in a single session, according to Business Insider's calculations. The Nasdaq 100 fell more than 6%, its worst day since the COVID-19 pandemic.

That is paper wealth. Musk sold nothing. The losses are tied to share prices and stay unrealized unless the stock is sold.

Who lost what

Musk took the biggest hit. Tesla closed down 10.77% at $343.69 and SpaceX fell 9.05% to $123.62. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index put his one-day drop at $79.7 billion, leaving him at about $785 billion. Forbes' real-time list had the drop at $79.3 billion at the close, leaving him near $789.5 billion.

A separate Forbes real-time reading reported by BigGo Finance showed a larger loss, $91.2 billion or 10.5%. Which tracker you use and when you take the snapshot changes the number. On that same Forbes real-time reading, BigGo put Michael Dell's loss at $20.5 billion (9.6%), Jensen Huang's at $15.1 billion (8.7%), Larry Ellison's at $13.2 billion (8.05%) and Mark Zuckerberg's at $12.9 billion (5.98%). Those figures differ from Business Insider's tally below.

The others, per Business Insider's tally:

• Michael Dell: down about $19 billion, more than 9%, to $190 billion. Dell Technologies stock fell 15%.
• Jensen Huang: down about $15 billion, 9%, to $151 billion. Nvidia fell 9%.
• Larry Ellison: down $10 billion, 6%, to $158 billion. Oracle fell 7%.
• Mark Zuckerberg: down about $8 billion, nearly 4%, to $215 billion.
• Steve Ballmer: down roughly $6 billion, 3%, to $188 billion. Microsoft fell about 4%.
• Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Jeff Bezos: each down less than 2%, or under $5 billion. Alphabet and Amazon each fell a little over 2%.

The 12-month picture

All nine remained among the 15 richest people on Earth at Thursday's close. Many are still far ahead of where they stood a year ago.

By Business Insider's math, Musk is still up $312 billion over 12 months, Bezos up $100 billion, Dell up $31 billion and Ballmer up $13 billion.

Ellison is the outlier. His net worth is down $152 billion, or 49%, over the same stretch. Huang is down about $19 billion, or 11%. Zuckerberg is also in the red. Page and Brin are up less than 1%.

What investors say drove it

The explanation on offer is political. Investors sold in anticipation of Democrats reining in AI and data-center spending after the party won both the House and Senate, according to Business Insider. Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who defeated Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas, campaigned on an immediate moratorium on data-center development. Texas is where both Tesla and SpaceX are headquartered.

On Musk specifically, Fortune reports that investors fear scrutiny from the new Congress. The incoming House Oversight Committee chair, Rep. Robert Garcia, has vowed to investigate "corporate corruption." His spokesperson told Politico on Oct. 20 that Musk's role in DOGE "is something we plan to investigate." Fortune estimates Musk spent $427.5 million to $483 million backing Republicans.

President Trump blamed the midterm results on Truth Social: "Such a sad thing to watch! It took so much work to get us to a level that no one has ever seen before, and then this. Your 401(k)s have, therefore, dropped."

Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management, said the market narrative has "ostensibly shifted" from "AI changes everything" to "Blue wave means data centers will never be built again in this country."

Politics is not the only explanation in play. Qualcomm fell about 13% after its earnings outlook disappointed, with smartphone-chip revenue down 26% to $5.14 billion. Neocloud firms such as CoreWeave, Nebius and IREN had already been beaten up in recent weeks over worries about borrowing to fund their buildouts, according to the Epoch Times. Several major U.S. tech stocks are now in a bear market, down at least 20% from their peaks.

The case that this is overdone

Keith Snyder, senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, called the Tesla and SpaceX drop a "knee-jerk reaction" and said investors are overestimating what Democrats can do. "Reigning in AI has been a stated goal of theirs, but you have to remember Trump seems to still be backing Musk and has veto power," he told Fortune.

The earnings backdrop supports some of that. AMD reported revenue of $13.38 billion, up 44.7%, on Nov. 3 and forecast fourth-quarter revenue of about $17 billion. Micron forecast a gross margin near 86.25% and was still up 134.76% for the year through Thursday. Both stocks fell anyway.

Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Asset Management took the opposite view on X: "Yesterday's stock market rally in the face of the Democratic landslide made no sense. In contrast, today's sell-off makes perfect sense. Expect more days like today."

Friday and beyond

As of 6:30 a.m. ET Friday, Nvidia, SpaceX and Oracle shares were higher in premarket trading, per Business Insider. Those are premarket indications, not the open. U.S. regular trading begins at 9:30 a.m. ET today, Nov. 6.

The larger open question for Musk is the Tesla-SpaceX merger. Musk said last month that special committees were exploring a deal. A Democratic Congress with subpoena power could slow any regulatory review of it. Fortune notes that Snyder expects Democrats' main lever there to be the power to "dramatically slow things down."