Jeff Bezos‘ $20.5 billion fortune evaporated after Amazon.com Inc disappointed investors, giving tech stocks their worst month in years. Shares of the e-commerce company fell 14 per cent on Friday after reporting a quarterly loss and the slowest sales growth since 2001. Bezos’ net worth fell to $148.4 billion from its peak this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. more than $210 billion.

The world’s 500 richest people collectively lost more than $54 billion in Friday’s rout, according to Bloomberg indexes. The benchmark S&P 500 fell 3.6 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 lost 4.5 per cent in its worst month since 2008.

Amazon.com Inc. founder and CEO Jeff Bezos speak during a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, the US, Thursday, September 19, 2019. Bezos talks about Amazon’s sustainability efforts every day in front of workers around the world, including his own more than 1,000 employees, and plans to go out and focus on climate change.

Bezos, 58, the world’s richest man after Elon Musk, is now the third-biggest loser of wealth this year, losing nearly $44 billion since Jan. 1. Amazon is battling higher labour costs after a hiring spree and a spike in inflation that could hamper sales during the pandemic. The company posted a net loss of $3.8 billion in the quarter ended March 31, compared with a profit of $8.1 billion a year earlier.