Page’s fortune plunged by $31.5 billion to $235.9 billion while Brin’s fell $28.9 billion to $217.2 billion, according to Forbes.
The Google owner’s stock tumbled 13% on Thursday, erasing a record $500 billion from the company’s market value as investors grew increasingly cautious about major technology firms’ spending on artificial intelligence (AI), CNN reported.
The single-day decline is the second-largest in Wall Street history, behind only Nvidia’s $593 billion loss last January.
Google co-founders Larry Page (L) and Sergey Brin. Photos by Reuters
Alphabet’s cash flow deteriorated further in the third quarter ended September, falling to negative $9.1 billion as the company ramped up AI spending to more than $50 billion during the period, according to its quarterly report released after market closed on Wednesday.
The figure missed analysts’ forecasts and marked only the second quarter of negative cash flow since Google went public in 2004, per the Financial Times.
The company’s earnings also fell short of Wall Street’s expectations as growth in Google’s core search and advertising business slowed. Operating income, excluding investment losses, climbed 30% to $40.6 billion but remained below forecast of $43.2 billion.
Since the start of the year, Alphabet stock has slipped about 10% and resulted in around 8% declines in the two co-founders’ fortunes, which are largely tied to the roughly 3% stakes they each own in the firm.
The pair founded Google in 1998 when they were in their mid-20s, having met years earlier as fellow Stanford University students. Google went public in 2004 and Alphabet was officially set up as the parent company in 2015.
Despite their recent losses, Page and Brin remain the world’s third- and fourth-richest men. They are behind Elon Musk but ahead of Jeff Bezos and Michael Dell, all three of whom also happened to round out Thursday’s five biggest wealth losers globally.
Amazon founder Bezos suffered the third-largest decline, of $9.6 billion, followed by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk with a $7.2 billion loss.
Dell’s net worth slid $6.5 billion. He is the CEO of Dell Technologies, which ranked as the world’s largest server vendor by revenue among original equipment manufacturers in the second quarter.