China's tech moguls see $80 billion of wealth evaporate in 2021

It’s been a record year for China’s internet moguls, but not in the way most would have hoped. The country’s 10 richest tech tycoons lost $80 billion in combined net worth in 2021, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, amid widescale crackdowns by Chinese regulators.

The drop is almost a quarter of their total wealth and is the largest one-year decline since 2012, when the index started tracking the world’s richest people. Pinduoduo  founder Colin Huang lost the most this year — $42.9 billion, or two-thirds of his fortune —as shares of the e-commerce platform plunged nearly 70 per cent.

Alibaba Group’s Jack Ma saw his wealth cut by about $13 billion. Didi Global founder Cheng Wei saw his stake in the firm soar to $6.7 billion as investors snapped up stakes in the secondary market , pushing its valuation to $95 billion. But the firm’s shares have plummeted more than 60 per cent since Chinese officials announced a probe and asked it to delist from the New York Stock Exchange, leaving Cheng’s fortune at $1.7 billion.