Amazon, one of the first companies to cross the threshold to enter the prestigious club of those worth more than a trillion dollars, just turned it back. The “everything store” created by Jeff Bezos became the first public company to lose $1 trillion in market value.

Amazon, valued at $1.882 billion on June 21, recently reported a market value of “only” $878 billion. As a result of the worsening economic conditions, Microsoft is not far behind, down almost 900 billion, although last year it briefly overtook Apple as the world’s most valuable company.

Amazon and Microsoft are not the only ones suffering: this year, the five most expensive US technology companies lost four trillion dollars together. For comparison, this is more than the combined GDP of Turkey, Argentina and Switzerland.

Amazon disappointed its investors with the results of the first three quarters that did not meet expectations. To make matters worse, the company announced that it will only see annual growth of 2-8% after the most recent quarter. That’s fine for a regular company, but not for Amazon, which seems to have been on a relentless growth engine so far.

Like many other companies, Amazon has been hit by inflation and a drop in online sales as consumers less frightened by Covid-19 return to brick-and-mortar stores.

In general, record losses in estimates speak no less about the specifics of the modern economy than about one or another company. Four years ago, Apple became the first company in the world whose value exceeded the trillion dollar mark.

Since then, Apple has managed to triple its productivity, and other companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Saudi Aramco have surpassed this seemingly immeasurable value.

But in 2022, instead of writing about other companies whose value has reached a trillion, the more important news is about those that lose the same value, but still maintain an extraordinary level of wealth.

Sources: Bloomberg, Gizmodo