Elon Musk, Zuckerberg gain billions after tariff pause

Photo : AFP

U.S. President Donald Trump made a surprise choice to stop most new trade taxes for 90 days. This made the stock markets go up quickly. Just a week before, Trump had said there would be new trade taxes, and that news made markets fall badly and lose a lot of money.

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Even though Trump did not stop trade taxes for China (and made them even higher — up to 125%), his new message helped many investors feel calm. Some of the money lost earlier was now coming back.

On April 2, Trump’s first news about the new trade taxes made one of the worst days in the stock market since the COVID-19 virus time. On that day, the 500 richest people in the world lost $208 billion in one day. It was the fourth worst loss ever in money history. People who work in the tech world lost the most. Elon Musk lost $11 billion because his car company shares fell. Mark Zuckerberg lost $17.9 billion as his social media company shares dropped. Jeff Bezos lost $15.9 billion as his online store company also went down. The tech market as a whole dropped a lot.

But on April 9, things changed. Trump said there would be a 90-day break from new trade taxes (but not for China). As soon as this, stock prices went up fast. One big stock list rose by 9.5%. Another one that holds many tech companies jumped by 12%. It was the biggest one-day rise in 24 years. A third big market list went up by 8%, reaching over 40,000 points for the first time ever.

Trump also posted on his social media app before the markets opened, asking people to “buy it.” This made more people want to buy stocks.

Because of all this, many rich people in business got back a lot of their money in just one day. Elon Musk earned $35.9 billion as his company’s shares rose 22%. Mark Zuckerberg got $25.8 billion back, almost fixing his earlier loss. Jeff Bezos gained $18.5 billion as his store company shares went up. Larry Ellison made $15.5 billion as his computer company improved. Trump also got richer. His media company shares rose 22.67%, adding $415 million to his money. It was his best one-day gain since his company joined the stock market.

Even after this good day, the world’s ten richest people were still down by $244 billion this year. Elon Musk lost the most overall — $107 billion since the start of the year.

In Australia, the top stock list also went up by 6.3%. This added over $150 billion in value. But Australia still has to pay 10% tax when it sells goods to the U.S.

Other countries in Europe and Asia also saw their markets go up. This helped bring back some trust from people who invest money. But experts say there could still be more ups and downs because of the trade fight with China, which still has very high trade taxes.

This short break in new taxes helped many rich people in tech and business. They turned a week of big loss into one day of big gain. But no one knows what will happen next in this trade story.