Wall Street Plunges, Zuckerberg's Fortune Suffers Steepest Drop

The drop in Wall Street stock prices, due to concerns over the realization of tax cuts and the intervention in the state secrets leak case, also caused a decrease in the wealth of the world's 500 richest people according to Bloomberg. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, saw his fortune shrink by US$2 billion, or approximately Rp 26.6 trillion (IDR), on May 17, 2017, to US$62.3 billion, or around Rp 828.6 trillion (IDR). This was the largest decrease compared to other billionaires.

The second largest decrease in wealth among global billionaires on May 17, 2017, belonged to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, with a US$1.78 billion drop, bringing his net worth to US$81.9 billion. Third was Mexican telecommunications entrepreneur Carlos Slim Helu, whose wealth decreased by US$1.1 billion to US$58.6 billion. Similarly, the wealth of the world's richest person, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, decreased by US$1 billion to US$86.8 billion.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average on May 17, 2017, local time, fell 372.82 points (1.78 percent) to 20,606.93 from the previous day's close. Similarly, the wealth of the world's 500 billionaires in the Bloomberg Billionaire Index shrank by US$35 billion to US$4.855 quadrillion from the previous day's US$4.89 quadrillion.