Fortunes Tumble From Seattle to Shenzhen in $135 Billion Wipeout

(Bloomberg) – A global stock market defeat sparked by worries over the China Evergrande Group hit the world’s greatest fortune on Monday, with the richest 500 people combined losing $ 135 billion.

Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk led the declines as its world leading net worth fell $ 7.2 billion to $ 198 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. # 2 Jeff Bezos, the founder of Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc., lost $ 5.6 billion and reduced his net worth to $ 194.2 billion.

A shortage of money at Evergrande, China’s most heavily indebted property developer, and regulatory action against the country’s real estate market fueled fears of possible financial contagion. Markets also responded to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s warning of economic disaster if lawmakers fail to raise the debt ceiling.

The S&P 500 slumped 1.7%, its strongest since May.

Read more: Evergrande Blowup ensnares stocks with fairly weak China links

Evergrande founder and chairman Hui Ka Yan continued his steep decline in Bloomberg’s wealth rankings as the company’s shares fell to their lowest levels in a decade. His net worth now stands at $ 7.3 billion, up from a high of $ 42 billion in 2017.

Hong Kong’s largest real estate developers led some of the worst losses on the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index. Real estate billionaires Lee Shau-Kee, Yang Huiyan, Li Ka-Shing and Henry Cheng have together lost more than $ 6 billion.

Colin Huang, founder of e-commerce platform Pinduoduo Inc., lost $ 29.4 billion this year, more than anyone else in China, including $ 2.3 billion on Monday.

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