Billionaires lose 1.4 trillion dollars

The world 's wealthiest individuals have lost more than $1 trillion combined in the first half of the year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. It is the steepest drop for the global millionaire class in sharp contrast to the previous year when bull markets boosted high net worth individuals by 8%.

United States maintains the top spot as the home of the world's wealthiest people, followed by Japan, China and Germany, where nearly 64% of the world's highest net worth individuals live, according to the Capgemini World Wheald report.

Higher cash losses

June came with bad news for billionaires. Two months ago Elon Musk' s fortune plunged by nearly $62 billion. However, he remains the richest man on the planet with $268 billion. Amazon owner Jeff Bezos has about $63 billion less but still maintains a net worth of $166 billion. And Mark Zuckerberg 's capital decreased by more than half, but he still maintains his wealth at 60 billion.

A combined $345 billion remains in the pockets of the five millionaires who lost the most money in the six-month period. The sharpest drop undoubtedly goes to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao who went from mid-January's $97 billion to $10 billion.

Meanwhile, the ranks of the wealthy in Asia-Pacific increased by only 4.2%, lagging behind Europe.