These CEOs Increased Their Wealth by US$64bn in Just One Day

Donald Trump’s US election victory put billions in the pockets of some of the world’s biggest CEOs in just one day.

The US stock market rocketed on Wednesday, the day the US election result became known, mainly because of the promise of deregulation under a Trump administration.

Shares in mining and energy companies also rose, due to Trump’s denial of climate change and his mantra of “drill, baby, drill” as one way to revive the American economy.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated that the world’s 10 wealthiest people gained nearly US$64bn (about £49.5bn) on Wednesday, the largest daily increase since the index began in 2012.

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and also the world’s richest person, registered the largest increase, with a US$26.5bn addition to his fortune, which now stands at US$290bn. By way of illustration, that’s the size of the GDP of Greece.

Elon Musk

Musk of course unapologetically campaigned for Trump, donating US$100m personally to his election campaign, and is now tipped to be “deregulation czar” in his new administration, presumably with oversight of manufacturing regulation – hence the share price of Tesla, in which he owns a 13% stake, spiking Wednesday.

Meanwhile, other tech leaders including Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO, who has been a longtime Trump supporter, all offered their congratulations.

Bezos was quick to offer “big congratulations” on a “decisive victory”. 

Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman bent the knee, congratulating president Trump and wishing “for his huge success in the job” in a decidedly more muted tweet than Bezos’s. 

Partly, it’s good business sense to sing “Hail to the Chief” to a new President, of whatever political persuasion, and partly because it could be that the CEOs of the world’s biggest companies are spooked by whatever a mercurial President Trump might do. 

Trump has been vocal in talking up the value of revenge, and he has some long-standing beefs with CEOs of some of America’s biggest companies, such as Harley-Davidson, Goodyear and General Motors.

“Trump has stated very openly that he wants revenge on people,” Mike Lux, co-founder of political consultancy Democracy Partners, told Bloomberg. “Of course there’s concern about blowback, I think it’s a very real possibility based on the statements and actions of Trump.”

Mark Zuckerberg

In Trump’s book Save America he accused Zuckerberg of steering Facebook against him during the 2020 election and warned if he did it again, the Meta CEO would “spend the rest of his life in prison.”

Zuckerberg called Trump “badass” in July, having survived a botched assassination attempt.

“Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life,” Zuckerberg said.

Jeff Bezos

Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who Trump mocked as “Jeff Bozo” in 2019, and his successor Andy Jassy also reportedly called Trump after his thwarted assassination.

“It is the most incredible thing I’ve ever watched,” Trump said Bezos told him.

Since then, Bezos ordered the traditionally liberal Washington Post to spike its endorsement of Vice-President Harris, despite having it already prepared.

In fact, the only member of the wealth elite to actually lose money on Wednesday was Bernard Arnault, CEO of French luxury goods group LVMH, whose fortune decreased by nearly US$3bn.

Make sure you check out the latest edition of Business Chief and also sign up to our global conference series - Sustainability LIVE 2024

Business Chief is a BizClik brand