World's richest lose $548 billion as sharemarket rout deepens

It's been an expensive two months for the 500 wealthiest people on the planet.

Their combined net worth fell $US181 billion ($227 billion) this week as the S&P 500 Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered their steepest weekly drop in more than two years amid heated rhetoric over tariffs and retaliation. The group's wealth has shrunk by $US436 billion - more than the entire GDP of countries like Norway or Israel - since markets peaked on January 26.

Mark Zuckerberg has lost a sizeable chunk of his fortune over the data mining scandal - and dragged other billionaires lower.Credit: AP

Mark Zuckerberg bore the brunt this week with $US10.3 billion wiped from his fortune on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He dropped three places to seventh on the ranking as scandal unfolded at Facebook. The social network's shares tumbled 14 per cent following reports that it let Cambridge Analytica amass data on 50 million users.

The downdraft also caught Larry Ellison, down $US7 billion as Oracle Corp. forecast slowing sales growth for cloud-related products. Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Google's Larry Page lost $US17 billion combined.

The world's 500 biggest fortunes now encompass $US5.2 trillion, according to the index.

Bloomberg