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• Ten of the world’s tech billionaires lost a combined $575 billion in 2022 as stocks tumbled.
• Inflation, a strong US dollar, and a tough digital-ad market took a toll on tech companies.
• Here are the tech billionaires who lost the most money, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

Net-worth figures are as of December 30.

Steve Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, lost $19.4 billion.Ballmer owns the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers.

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The wealth of Ballmer, who was the CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014, is mainly tied up in shares of the tech behemoth. After this year’s loss, he’s worth $86.2 billion.

In 2022, the company’s growth slowed as it faced less demand for personal computers and a stronger US dollar. Sales of its Windows operating system fell, and its stock followed, falling by 28% over the year. Microsoft told investors to expect weak sales of personal computers into the new year.

Zeng Yuqun, the chairman of Contemporary Amperex Technology, lost $20.7 billion.Zeng chairs the world’s largest supplier of electric-vehicle batteries.

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Most of Zeng’s wealth comes from his 23% stake in Contemporary Amperex Technology, the largest supplier of electric-vehicle batteries. His net worth rounding out the year is $32.5 billion.

In April, the company reported its sharpest decline in quarterly earnings, with net income falling by 24%. Earlier in the year, prices for nickel, a major component of electric-car batteries, and other raw materials were unstable.

Bill Gates, a cofounder of Microsoft, lost $28.6 billion.Gates’ net worth fell along with Microsoft stock.

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With a net worth of $110 billion, Gates has investments spread across companies, real estate, and land, but his shares of Microsoft are his most valuable single holding.

Microsoft’s stock lost close to 30% of its value this year, as sales of Windows fell and the company predicted slow growth for its cloud revenue.

MacKenzie Scott, a novelist and philanthropist, lost $37.3 billion.Scott is the former wife of Jeff Bezos.

Evan Agostini/Associated Press

Like that of her ex-husband Jeff Bezos, Scott’s net worth suffered from Amazon’s stock drop this year. Most of Scott’s wealth comes from a 3% stake in Amazon, whose shares tumbled by 50% this year. She’s now worth $19 billion.

She said in a blog post in November that she’d given nearly $2 billion this year to 343 organizations supporting underserved communities.

Sergey Brin, a cofounder of Google, lost $44 billion.Most of Brin’s net worth comes from his stake in Alphabet.

Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Brin and his cofounder Larry Page lost a collective $89 billion this year as Alphabet and other tech companies dealt with a difficult year for digital advertising. Brin’s net worth sits at $79.5 billion.

Like Page, Brin gets most of his wealth from his stake in Alphabet, Google’s parent company. As of the end of last year, Page and Brin together owned 85.9% of Alphabet’s Class B shares, meaning they held a little over 50% of the company’s voting power.

Larry Page, a cofounder of Google, lost $45.3 billion.Page owns about 6% of Alphabet.

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Both Brin’s and Page’s net worth fell this year as Alphabet struggled with digital advertising. Most of Page’s wealth — he’s now worth $83.1 billion — comes from his 6% stake in Alphabet.

Alphabet slowed its hiring this year and reportedly cut back on employee travel and offsite perks.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, lost $79.9 billion.Revenue at Zuckerberg’s Meta fell this year.

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

At the end of last year Zuckerberg was the sixth-richest person in the world, but he ends 2022 at No. 25 on the list, with $45.6 billion.

Revenue at Meta, formerly Facebook, fell this year as it faced a potential economic recession and a hard year for digital advertising.

Meta laid off 11,000 employees this fall to cut expenses as it works on building the metaverse.

Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the cofounder and CEO of Binance, lost $83.3 billion.Zhao suffered during this year’s crypto winter.

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Most of Zhao’s $12.6 billion net worth comes from his controlling stake in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

Since the collapse of FTX, which sought help from Binance before it filed for bankruptcy, the crypto market has faced scrutiny from investors worried about their assets.

This month, Binance customers withdrew billions from the crypto platform. Because of the withdrawals and fluctuations in crypto prices, Binance held about $54.7 billion worth of digital assets in mid-December, while over a month earlier it held $69.5 billion worth of assets.

The Department of Justice is said to be investigating the firm over allegations of money laundering.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, lost $85.2 billion.Bezos’ wealth fell as Amazon’s stock dropped this year.

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Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO last year, is still the company’s largest shareholder. But tech stocks fell this year, and the value of Amazon’s shares fell by 50%. Bezos is now worth $107 billion.

The company has dealt with high inflation and slow growth in sales. Amazon was among several tech companies that laid off staff this year, cutting about 10,000 jobs, the most in its history.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, lost $132 billion.In 2022, Musk lost his title as the world’s richest man.

Adrees Latif/Reuters

Musk recently lost his title as the richest person in the world to Bernard Arnault, the CEO of LVMH. Now the second-richest person on Earth, Musk has a fortune of $138 billion.

He lost more money than any other billionaire this year.

A lot of Musk’s wealth is tied up in shares of Tesla. The electric-car maker’s stock plummeted by almost 70% this year, in part because investors grew concerned by Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

Tesla’s stock was also a victim of weakening demand for electric vehicles, specifically in China, one of Tesla’s largest markets.

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• Pope Benedict XVI died aged 95 at his Vatican residence. 
• Benedict succeeded Pope John Paul II and served as head of the Catholic church from 2005 to 2013.
• Benedict led the church during a time of widespread criticism over sex abuses committed by priests.

Pope Benedict XVI, the retired conservative pontiff who led the Catholic Church for less than a decade, has died aged 95.

German-born Benedict died on Saturday after the Vatican said on December 28 his health had deteriorated. Pope Francis said Benedict, his predecessor, was “very ill” and called on the faithful to “support him in this witness of love to the church, until the end.”

“Regarding the health condition of the emeritus pope, for whom Pope Francis asked for prayers at the end of his general audience this morning, I can confirm that in the last hours, a worsening due to advanced age has happened,″ Matteo Bruni, a spokesperson for the Vatican said in a statement.

Benedict succeeded Pope John Paul II and led the church from 2005 to 2013 when he resigned due to his mental and physical health. He was the first pope to resign since the 15th century, as most typically serve until their deaths. Pope Francis succeeded him.

Benedict was known as a conservative theologian and served as pope during a tumultuous time in which the church was the subject of widespread criticism over sex abuses committed by priests and other church officials.

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• Gas prices could surge toward $7 a gallon in some US states in 2023, according to GasBuddy. 
• Cold snaps across the US and revived energy demand from China are the two key factors that could push up prices. 
• “2023 is not going to be a cakewalk for motorists. It could be expensive,” said Patrick De Haan in a blogpost. 

Brace for a spike in US gas prices next year due to refinery disruptions and amid renewed energy demand from China as the Asian nation reopens its economy, according to GasBuddy. 

“2023 is not going to be a cakewalk for motorists. It could be expensive,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at the firm, which tracks fuel costs, in its 2023 fuel outlook.

The national average price of gas at the pump could top around $4 a gallon in most major US cities as early as May next year, De Haan said, from $3.18 on Friday. Cities in the West Coast state of California, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, could see gas prices approach nearly $7 a gallon in the summer of 2023, according to GasBuddy.

“Basically, curveballs are coming from every direction,” De Haan said. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen such an amount of volatility as we saw this year, and that will be a trend that likely continues to lead to wider uncertainty over fuel prices going into 2023,” he added.

US gas costs have retreated from the highs reached in June, when the national average topped $5 a gallon as global oil prices surged amid disruptions created by Russia’s war with Ukraine and an energy crisis in Europe. The drop came after President Joe Biden started releasing record amounts of crude from US reserves to rein in energy costs and inflation. 

According to De Haan, a rebound in gas prices is already starting in part due to the extreme cold weather conditions blanketing the US, which has caused havoc on refineries and curbed the production of gasoline and diesel. 

That means 2022 will close with a yearly national average for gasoline of $3.95 a gallon, the highest yearly average recorded, De Haan tweeted. 

“China’s reopening is a wildcard to watch in coming days/weeks,” De Haan warned in a tweet. “The window may be closing on those ultra-low prices that we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks. As China has reopened, oil prices have rebounded,” he said in a Friday interview on CNBC. 

On the whole, however, GasBuddy noted that drivers are estimated to spend 10% less on gasoline next year compared with 2022, given that the average household is likely to spend $277 less on fuel.

“What we saw in 2022 was simply madness at the nation’s fuel pumps, with records being set seemingly left and right as Covid imbalances persisted and Russia invaded Ukraine,” De Haan said in GasBuddy’s 2023 outlook report. “While it’s highly improbable that lightning strikes the same spot twice, the storm clouds over oil and refined markets may persist, and there still could be some spikes as the market remains somewhat tight.”

Former Pope Benedict died on Saturday in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican, a spokesman for the Holy See said.

“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be provided as soon as possible,” the spokesman said in a written statement.

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• Aldi says it’s sold out of Prime just one day after it started selling the energy drink.
• Videos on social media show people waiting outside stores and scrambling to buy the drinks.
• “It’s not a nice drink at all,” one shopper who bought the drink for his son told Insider.

Shoppers scrambled to grab bottles of Prime, the energy drink promoted by YouTubers Logan Paul and KSI, causing Aldi to run out of the product. Some stores appear to have sold out within minutes of opening.

“As with all our Specialbuys, Prime was available for a limited period only and has now sold out,” a spokesperson for Aldi told Insider on Friday.

The discount retailer started selling Prime on Thursday for £1.99, or $2.40, in three flavors: Blue Raspberry, Lemon and Lime, and Ice Pop.

Aldi limited customers to one bottle of each flavor per purchase in anticipation of “high demand.”

“The drink will be a Specialbuy — and as with all Specialbuys, once they’re gone, they’re gone,” it said in a press release.

There has been huge demand for Prime. The drink was available in seven flavors online and cost £24.99 for a 12-pack but stock has sold out. One mom told Insider that her son’s school had banned students from bringing in the drink because kids were trying to sell it.

Videos posted on social media showed huge lines of people waiting outside Aldi stores before they opened to get their hands on the drink on Thursday morning.

—alfie (@AlfieSims04) December 29, 2022

—Craig Westbrook (@CraigWestbrook5) December 29, 2022

—Chay Phinbow (@Chaayp) December 29, 2022

Bloomberg reported that more than 100 people were waiting outside a store in southwest London on Thursday morning to buy the drink. Shopper Kristina Sheppard told The Daily Mail that she saw people seemingly buying whole cases of Prime and parents “pushing” children. The whole store was “absolute carnage,” she said.

Some videos showed people scrambling, shouting, and shoving to get their hands on the drinks, but some customers said they had a much calmer experience.

Rob Leat, a fitness trainer and online coach from Bristol, said he arrived at his local store 15 minutes before it opened and there was already a line of people there wanting to buy the drink. Customers were told to head straight to two checkouts to buy it, he said.

“Hats off to Aldi,” he said. “It was really well organized and everybody in the queue was respectful, nobody tried to queue jump.”

Chay Phinbow, a teaching assistant, told Insider her 11-year-old twins had wanted to try the drink since it was launched, and that it had been “extremely difficult to get hold of for many months.”

Phinbow said that on Thursday she arrived at the Kidbrooke branch of Aldi in southeast London about half an hour before the store opened. They were the first in the line, she said.

By 7:55 a.m., there were some 150 people waiting for the store to open but Phinbow said: “Although there was a mad dash the staff handled it fairly.”

Brandon Tough said he’d only managed to get his hands on the drink twice – once at supermarket chain Asda, which was the sole Prime distributor in the UK before Aldi started selling it too, and once at the German discount retailer. He used the app Prime Tracker to find out which stores had the drink in stock.

Asda started selling the drinks in September and limited them to three bottles a customer.

“We knew the drink would be popular which is why we picked it up exclusively,” an Asda spokesperson said. They noted that greater supply meant that stocks had improved, leading to fewer long lines for the drinks.

“We certainly aren’t seeing the kinds of scenes that we were a few months ago,” the spokesperson said.

Many who bought Prime are fans of Logan Paul and KSI, who have been promoting the drink on their social-media platforms.

Leat told Insider he had followed KSI for a long time, “so I wanted to see for myself if his product lived up to the hype.”

“It was a pretty average drink but I did like the ice pop flavor,” he said.

Sam Kinsella, a landscape gardener from Bedfordshire, told Insider that he’d bought it because his son had seen it on TikTok. His verdict was much less positive. “It it’s not a nice drink at all,” Kinsella said.

Jake Dickinson, a motor factory manager from Lincoln, told Insider that some flavors were better than others.

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• Lidl has about 170 US stores and plans to open more. Its first Manhattan site launched in 2022.
• Lidl operates in a similar format to Aldi, with an emphasis on cutting costs to keep prices low.
• Here’s everything you need to know about the grocery chain.

Lidl could follow in the footsteps of discounter rival Aldi

Grace Dean/Insider

Lidl opened its first US store in 2017, but it’s failed to make a splash. Store growth has been slower than the German discount chain expected, and more than five years later it has fewer than 200 stores.

Lidl aims to follow in the footsteps of Aldi, a rival German grocery retailer. Aldi opened its first US store in 1976 and now has about 2,200 sites across 38 states.

Real-estate company JLL listed Aldi as the fastest-growing grocer in the US in 2021 for the third year running and ranked it as the third-largest by store count after Kroger and Walmart. The chain is loved by bargain hunters, college students, and middle-income shoppers alike.

Lidl operates in a similar format to Aldi, with a focus on cutting costs to keep prices low. Items are sold straight from their delivery boxes, stores are kept compact to make them more efficient, and non-essential services are shunned.

As the US braces for a recession, more shoppers may flock to discount chains like Aldi and Lidl.

Here’s everything you need to know about Lidl.

Lidl cuts costs wherever it can to keep prices at rock-bottomA Lidl store in London.

Grace Dean/Insider

Lidl operates similarly to Aldi, with a focus on keeping prices down by carefully controlling costs.

Lidl’s US website says it offers a limited selection of products to ensure it can get them at competitive prices, and about 80% are private label. And because of the limited product range, its stores can be more compact, meaning they’re easier for both staff customers to navigate. It says its US stores start at about 15,000 square feet.

Lidl says it keeps overheads “to a minimum” and eliminates “any unnecessary costs.” This includes stocking items in the boxes they arrive in, which reduces labor expenses.

The focus in the stores is on efficiency. “Every store features an intuitive layout for a seamless experience,” Lidl US says. “As an efficient company, we work according to defined processes and procedure. Our success is ensured by short decision paths and simple work processes.”

Lidl has a rotating selection of non-food merchandise, which can range from clothes to kitchenware and electrical appliances. This encourage shoppers to visit regularly to see what that week’s bargains are while creating a feeling of exclusivity that pushes people to buy now before the products are gone.

Lidl opened 450 stores in Germany in just 15 yearsA Lidl store in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1998.

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Lidl’s origins date back to the 1930s, when Josef Schwarz joined the tropical fruit wholesaler Lidl & Co and transformed it into a grocery wholesaler.

The business was destroyed in 1944 during the Second World War, but was revived within a decade, according to Manager Magazin.

Josef’s son Dieter Schwarz, born in 1939, joined the company after he finished high school, according to Bloomberg.

But it wasn’t until decades later, in 1973, that the younger Schwarz restructured the company and opened its first discount store in Ludwigshafen-Mundenheim, inspired by Aldi’s success.

Bloomberg reported that he bought the rights to the Lidl name because he couldn’t call the business “Schwarzmarkt,” which translates from German as “black market.” The store sold around 500 product lines.

Dieter Schwarz took over the company as chairman and CEO in 1977 after Josef died.

Lidl’s expansion was rapid. By 1988, it had more than 450 stores in Germany and about 5,700 employees.

The next year, it expanded abroad. France was the home of Lidl’s first international store. Shortly after, it opened stores elsewhere in Europe, including Italy in 1992 and the UK in 1994.

By 2003, Lidl had more than 80,000 employees across Europe.

In 2006, the retailer launched Lidl Asia, a sourcing arm for the company which has more than 1,000 employees across Hong Kong, China, and Bangladesh. Its roles include production, quality assurance and delivery, though Lidl doesn’t have any stores in Asia.

Lidl did not respond to Insider’s request for more detailed information on its history.

Lidl launched its online store in 2009. Its since launched its own app, where customers can redeem coupons to get money off their shop.

Lidl Ireland started offering free menstrual products to those affected by period poverty in May 2021 through the Lidl Plus app. The company said this made it the “first major retailer” to start offering free period products nationwide. Lidl Northern Ireland quickly followed up with a similar initiative.

Lidl is part of the Schwarz Group, alongside sister company Kaufland, a hypermarket chain launched by Schwarz in the 1980s. Kaufland now has more than 1,500 stores across Europe, around half of which are in Germany. Lidl is headquartered in Neckarsulm.

Dieter Schwarz is the second-richest German with an estimated fortune of $22 billionA Lidl store in Hamburg, Germany in 2001.

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Dieter Schwarz is listed by Bloomberg as the world’s 59th-richest person and the second-richest German with an estimated fortune of about $22 billion. His vast fortune even made his hometown, Heilbronn, Germany’s richest city in 2014.

Schwarz has pumped huge sums of money into the town, and some have accused him of effectively trying to buy it.

Schwarz is notoriously reclusive. There are very few photos available of him and he refuses to give interviews.

The billionaire withdrew from running the Schwarz Group’s operations in 1999 but is still involved in some strategic decisions. Bloomberg reported that he put 99.9% of the company’s shares in a foundation, the Dieter Schwarz Stiftung, and 100% of voting rights in a separate operating company.

Lidl’s US launch was much slower than expectedManhattan’s first Lidl.

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Lidl launched in the US in 2017, its first and only market outside of Europe. A company presentation before its US launch described the retailer as a cross between Trader Joe’s and Harris Teeter, a grocery chain based in North Carolina.

Lidl’s first 20 stores opened in Virginia and the Carolinas in summer 2017 and analysts had high expectations, but its launch in the US was slower than expected.

Forbes reported that it had originally forecast opening 100 stores in its first year of operating but only reached about half this number.

But the company has been picking up the pace. Lidl bought 27 Best Market stores in New York and New Jersey, which it remodeled. It said it would guarantee jobs for the company’s staff and offer them wages and benefits “equal to or better than” at Best Market.

Lidl’s first New York store open on Staten Island in summer 2018. Its first Manhattan branch opened in early 2022 in Harlem, and its first Brooklyn store is due in 2024.

Lidl said that within three years it won more than 500 awards for our unique products and shopping experience and Food & Wine Magazine designated it the country’s sixth-best supermarket in 2020.

The discounter says that it now has more than 170 stores across nine East Coast states.

Lidl now has more than 12,000 stores across 31 countriesA Lidl store in London.

Grace Dean/Insider

Lidl reported sales of 100 billion euros ($107 billion) in 2021, a 4.7% increase on the previous year. It now has more than 12,000 stores across 31 countries, with some 340,000 staff.

Its discount rival Aldi, meanwhile, has about 11,000 stores across its two businesses, with 2021 net sales of almost 89 billion euros ($94 billion).

Though Lidl is yet to make big waves in the US, its UK business, which has more than 900 stores, is booming. Lidl is ranked as the UK’s sixth-biggest supermarket with a 7.4% share in the grocery market, according to data from Kantar.

In Germany, Lidl has about 93,000 employees across some 3,200 stores.

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• I flew British Airways from London Heathrow to Basel, Switzerland a few days before Christmas.
• Staff at the airport asked me to check my cabin bag because the flight was “full”.
• My bag failed to make it to Basel and I had to spend more than $400 on essentials.

This year Insider has published hundreds of stories about travel chaos, from Qantas booking a baby and her parents on different flights, to an Air Canada passenger who was made to check a carry-on bag only for it to go missing.

I know now how that Air Canada passenger must have felt after flying British Airways from Heathrow to Basel, Switzerland on December 20. My partner and I had one large checked-in suitcase and two cabin bags.

Having previously reported on passengers’ woes, I was wary when asked to check in my carry-on bag as well.

However, the agents were very convincing and kept saying it’d get to Basel no matter what. “We promise it will, otherwise you can sue,” one joked.

They wanted me to check the bag because my flight was “full.” After asking several times if my bag would make it on the plane, I gave in.

We boarded almost an hour late but landed just 10 minutes behind schedule and then made our way to the luggage carousel. 

It was then that a text message appeared on my phone: “We are sorry to report that 1 checked bag/s did not reach your flight today. Please go to the airport baggage desk for more info.” It also contained a reference number for the claim the airline had already opened for me.

I spent the next 30 minutes trying to figure out exactly which bag was missing. It was, of course, my carry-on containing all my clothes, underwear, jacket, and other essential items worth about $1,000 all up.

After we got picked up at the airport, we went to a store to get some new socks and underwear. The following day we went shopping to get some shirts and trousers at a cost of more than $400. 

A spokesperson for British Airways told Insider: “We always do everything we can to reunite our customers with their delayed baggage as soon as possible. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.”

The airline has told me it would reimburse me for the purchases and add 25,000 Avios (frequent flyer) points to my account. 

I appreciate how busy it gets over the holiday season and that airlines must deal with thousands of these problems every day. However, I underestimated just how stressful it is if your luggage goes missing.

I was annoyed at myself for not trusting my instincts – and there was still room left in the overhead bins when we boarded the flight. 

China reported one new COVID-19 death in the mainland for Dec. 30, compared with one death a day earlier, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday.

The death toll has risen to 5,248.