ARTnews Top 200 collectors Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault, and Alice Walton have lost additional billions during the last three trading days after $10 trillion in stock market sell-offs in response to the new “reciprocal” tariffs against all other nations and the increased likelihood of a global recession due to a trade war.
“It’s going to affect everything,” one blue-chip gallerist with three locations told ARTnews after an exhibition opening on April 4.
The cascading losses began on April 3, after the Nasdaq Composite dropped more than 6 percent, the S&P 500 sank nearly 5 percent, and the Dow fell more than 1,700 points, or 4 percent. Those declines continued on April 4 and April 7 spreading to stock markets in Asia and Europe. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell more than 13 percent on April 7, the largest one-day decline since 1997.
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When the US markets opened on Monday, all three major indices fell further, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq entering bear market territory after three-day declines of more than 20 percent from recent peaks. “This is now the worst three-day performance for the S&P 500 since October 1987,” Bloomberg News podcast host Joe Weisenthal posted on social media.
The declines across US and global indices between April 3 and April 7 were much more severe compared to the billions in losses in early March after previous announcements from Trump about higher tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, China and Hong Kong to the US.
After three chaotic days of trading, 30 of the 32 Top 200 collectors that are also currently on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index had losses, according to data analysis by ARTnews. For 21 of those 32 billionaire art collectors, the losses exceeded $1 billion, four of those 25 collectors had aggregate losses greater than $5 billion, and 19 of the 32 art collectors saw a reduction of their total net worth by 10 percent or more.
LVMH owner Bernard Arnault had the largest three-day loss at $19 billion, lowering his net worth by 11 percent to $150 billion. During the same period, the net worth of Crystal Bridges Museum founder and Walmart heir Alice Walton fell $7.54 billion (-7 percent); followed by Reliance Industries chair Mukesh Ambani’s drop of $7.2 billion (-8 percent), and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s decline of $6.6 billion (-3 percent).
Other Top 200 collectors who saw ten-figure declines in their net worths included former KKR CEO George Roberts, Chanel chairperson Alain Wertheimer, Uniqlo CEO Tadashi Yanai, KKR co-founder Henry Kravis, HCL Enterprise chairperson Shiv Nadar, British designer James Dyson, SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner, Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black, French businessman Francois Pinault, and finance executive Charles Schwab.
While Arnault had the greatest loss in total net worth, the largest declines on a percentage basis were Dyson at 16 percent, followed by 15 percent drops in the net worths of Kravis, Roberts, as well as Prada executive directors Patrizio Bertelli and Miuccia Prada. Shares of KKR fell more than 20 percent on Thursday and Friday, hitting 52-week lows, but rallied on Monday. Shares of Prada fell more than 17 percent between April 3 and April 7.
The two Top 200 billionaire collectors who did not experience any losses between April 3 and April 7 were US entertainment executive David Geffen and Citadel founder Ken Griffin.
The New York Times reported Sunday that “traders at the $66 billion hedge fund Citadel, had, for roughly a month, been reducing the use of leverage and other volatile trading instruments” and that Griffin “became increasingly convinced that Mr. Trump would cause tumult, said two employees not permitted to be named discussing the fund’s machinations.”
It’s worth noting that Griffin also donated $100 million to outside spending groups for the 2024 election, which resulted in former President Donald Trump winning a second term. This amount, solely to conservatives, was the fifth-largest amount for individual donors, according to data released by the Federal Election Commission and analysis from Open Secrets, a non-profit research and government transparency group. Griffin’s donations included $30 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, more than one-quarter (25.8 percent) of its total raised ($116.5 million).
The mass sell-offs on global stock markets also triggered margin calls at many hedge funds and one early-career art dealer told ARTnews that many collectors had contacted them recently, trying to liquidate multi-million dollar works. During the Covid-19 pandemic, a margin call from Deutsche Bank also prompted former Top 200 collector Ron Perelman to sell 71 works by blue-chip artists worth nearly $1 billion between 2020 and 2022.
The continued selloff on April 7 was accelerated by news that Trump had also threatened to increase tariffs on imports from China by an additional 50 percent if the country did not remove or lower its counter-tariffs of 34 percent on imports from the US.
In a social media post, Trump said “If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!”
US tariffs on imported goods from China had already been raised to 54 percent on April 4. While works of art, collector’s pieces, and antiques are still not subject to the new US tariffs under Chapter 97 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, the US also imports large volumes of supplies, office supplies, art-related clothing an merchandise, furniture, steel, paper, printed books, and electronics from China each year.
The European Commission has also proposed counter-tariffs of 25 percent on a range of US goods.
Rumors about a 90-day pause on the new tariffs briefly encouraged positive trading activity, but losses resumed after the White House issued a statement calling it “fake news”. After conflicting messages from senior officials during media appearances on Sunday and Monday, President Trump was directly asked whether his new tariffs were negotiable or not.
“They can both be true,” Trump responded during a press conference. “There can be permanent tariffs and there can also be negotiations because there are things that we need beyond tariffs.”
One art shipping executive told ARTnews he immediately received a deluge of inquiries from clients about the new tariffs. He said the uncertainty of the future—including the possibility of more counter-tariffs, concerns over his ability to easily travel in and out of the US, as well as the safety of his immediate family—reminded him of early 2020 all over again.
“It’s just like Covid,” he said. “Except this time, the virus is in the White House.”
