World's 6 Richest Tech Billionaires Lose $130B as AI Capex Fears Hit Stocks

The six wealthiest people in the world collectively lost $130B on Thursday as tech equities fell over renewed investor concerns regarding the return on investment for massive AI infrastructure spending. Elon Musk's net worth dropped $74B to $914.7B on Thursday afternoon (before reaching an estimated $917.6B as of 3 p.m. EDT) as SpaceX shares sank nearly 9% despite reporting 161% year-over-year revenue growth on Tuesday, with investors weighing a $35B cash-flow gap and Musk's confirmation that SpaceX is considering merging with Tesla. Mark Zuckerberg lost $18B as Meta shares fell 8% after the company reported $34.9B in Q3 capital expenditures alongside 26% year-over-year revenue growth and raised the lower bound of its full-year capex forecast by $5B to a range of $135B to $145B. Tesla shares declined 2% even after generating a surprise $1.5B in Q3 free cash flow against analyst expectations of a $4.9B cash burn, as cutting full-year capex guidance from over $25B to $20B raised investor fears of slower AI and robotics development. Elsewhere in the selloff, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin lost a combined $15B as Alphabet shares fell over 3%, Michael Dell lost $12B as Dell Technologies dropped 7%, and Jeff Bezos lost an estimated $11B as Amazon shares fell nearly 5%.