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Here's How Much the Wells Fargo Scandal Cost Warren Buffett

By:
Martha C. White
2 min read
- Alex Wong—Getty Images
Alex Wong—Getty Images

Although Wells Fargo was slapped with $185 million in fines for opening roughly 2 million unauthorized checking and credit card accounts, the one who really lost big was Warren Buffett. The famous investor lost $1.4 billion when the bank's stock fell on Tuesday.

Other billionaire investors also lost money in market fallout of the Wells Fargo mess, according to Bloomberg, but the fall was especially painful for Warren Buffett because most of his billions are tied up in his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, which is Wells Fargo's biggest shareholder. When the share price of Wells Fargo fell by more than 3%, Berkshire Hathaway's own stock also fell.

It's been a rough week for Buffett. Last Friday, a New York company sued Berkshire Hathaway for $18 million, claiming that a worker's comp insurance policy it purchased was actually a high-risk investment that left the company on the hook for nearly $900,000.

Don't feel too bad for the Oracle of Omaha though: Buffett's net worth is still nearly $66 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire's Index. That makes him the 4th richest person on the plaent, behind Bill Gates, Amancio Ortega and Jeff Bezos.

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