Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa ‘regrets’ losing US$41 million in volatile stock markets
- The entrepreneur, who sold his online fashion retailer Zozo last year, said he failed to master short-term trading amid pandemic-driven market swings
- He is known for publicity stunts such as seeking a girlfriend to travel to the moon on Elon Musk’s rocket in 2023 and giving away cash to Twitter followers
“I was blinded by the virus-driven market swings and lost 4.4 billion yen through repeated short-term trading of stocks, something I haven’t familiarised myself with,” Maezawa said in the Sunday tweet. “With 4.4 billion yen, how many people could the money have been given out to and saved? There’s no end to this regret.”
Who is Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, and why is he giving US$9m away?
Maezawa, whose net worth dropped by about US$215 million this year to US$3.5 billion according to Bloomberg-compiled data, is well-known for pulling stunts on Twitter.
He is known for his big spending on art and sports cars, and also has a predilection for musing on ideas like a world without money.
Maezawa also announced he would give away 1 million yen (US$9 million) to 1,000 of his Twitter followers selected at random from those who retweeted a January 1 post, in what he said was a “social experiment” to see if the payment boosts their happiness, with the impact of the money to be tracked through regular surveys.
“It’s a serious social experiment,” said Maezawa on YouTube, adding he hoped to attract interest from academics and economists.
Followers have shown mixed responses to his latest tweet on stock trading, with some showing sympathy and some expressing awe over the extent of the losses.
Maezawa last year sold his online fashion retailer Zozo Inc to Yahoo Japan, a subsidiary of tech and investment conglomerate SoftBank. On Monday, SoftBank closed down 7 per cent as its bets on equity derivatives tied to listed technology companies made investors uncomfortable amid a decline in markets.
Japanese billionaire Yusaka Maezawa claims record for most retweets
Shares fell below 6,000 yen for the first time in two months to 5,881 yen. The group was the biggest loser in percentage terms on the benchmark index, which closed down 0.5 per cent.
SoftBank has spent billions of dollars buying shares in technology companies such as Amazon as it parks cash generated by a massive asset sale programme. The group has also made significant options purchases in tech companies, in an aggressive bet by Chief Executive Masayoshi Son on rising tech stocks.
Options of US$4 billion generated an exposure of about US$50 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. The group has made US$4 billion in trading gains from those bets, according to the Financial Times.
Additional reporting by Reuters
