500 of the World’s richest persons lost a reported combined $108 Billion in 24 hours following the sudden rise in popularity of the new Artificial intelligence (AI) App Deep Seek.

The China-based AI company, which saw an overwhelming demand following its sell-off on Monday, after becoming the top downloaded tool in the Apple Store, disrupted the stocks in the sector, especially main player NVIDIA.

Billionaires whose fortunes are linked to AI suffered the biggest losses: led by Nvidia Corp.‘s co-founder Jensen Huang, who experienced a US$20.1 billion, dip in his fortune.

Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison’s US$22.6 billion loss was larger in absolute terms, but represented just 12 per cent of his fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Dell Inc.’s Michael Dell saw his net worth slip by US$13 billion, with Crypto Currency entrepreneur  Binance Holdings Ltd. co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao’s value being shaved by US$12.1 billion.

DeepSeek has been developing AI models since 2023. However, the company seriously emerged on the radar of many Western investors on the weekend exemplified by it’s free R1 chatbot app topped download charts worldwide