Bloomberg News reported on Sunday that prominent U.S. CEOs, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, have offloaded substantial amounts of stock ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s looming tariff threats.
Among those selling shares were Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta; Safra A. Catz, CEO of Oracle Corporation; and Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase.
Zuckerberg divested 1.1 million shares worth approximately 733 million USD in the first quarter.
Catz also unloaded 3.8 million shares valued at around 705 million USD during the same period.
Dimon, often referred to as the titan of Wall Street, sold 234 million USD worth of stock in the same timeframe.
The U.S. stock market took a significant hit in the first quarter, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 1.28%, the S&P 500 dropping 4.59%, and the Nasdaq plummeting 10.42%. This marks the worst performance since 2022.
A massive sell-off occurred in anticipation of April 2, when Trump announced his plan to impose reciprocal tariffs on countries worldwide, calling it the Liberation Day.
Tesla experienced a sharp decline in particular, consequently reducing CEO Elon Musk’s personal wealth by approximately 129 billion USD during the first quarter.