Content
Alling stocks, wounded unicorns and rising interest rates translated into a down year for the world’s wealthiest people. Globally, we counted 2,640 ten-figure fortunes, down from 2,668 last year. Altogether, the planet’s billionaires are now worth $12.2 trillion, a drop of $500 billion from $12.7 trillion in March 2022. Nearly half the list is poorer than a year ago, including Elon Musk, who falls from No. 1 to No. 2 after his pricey acquisition of Twitter helped sink Tesla
TSLA
TSLA
shares.
- Along with his family, Adani controls India’s largest port, in his home state of Gujarat, shown here.
- Investor and noted Dairy Queen enthusiast Warren Buffett is the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, which owns GEICO, Duracell, Fruit of the Loom, and dozens of other companies (including Dairy Queen).
- Arnault is the chairman and chief executive officer CEO of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury-goods company.
- The duo devised a new search engine technology they dubbed Backrub after its ability to assess links to a page.
- Finance and investments, food and beverage, fashion and retail, and technology are the top sources of wealth for U.S. billionaires, with almost 50% of them gaining their fortunes from these specific industries.
He has also donated millions of dollars to charity, including the Ellison Foundation, which supports education, healthcare, and environmental causes. He dropped out of college twice before joining Ampex Corporation, where he worked on database management systems. In 1977, he co-founded Oracle Corporation with Bob Miner and Ed Oates. Bezos is a controversial figure, but there is no doubt that he is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time.
That month, he took an 11-minute voyage to the edge of space aboard a Blue Origin spacecraft.
This contrasts with other big tech firms, which offer free food and perks. The retailer offers, appliances, clothing, groceries, toiletries, and even cloud computing services. This number astounded him, and he decided he needed to find some way to take advantage of its rapid growth. He made a list https://www.bookstime.com/articles/what-are-basic-bookkeeping-skills of 20 possible products to sell online and decided books were the best option, according to “The Everything Store” book. Oxfam estimates that inequality contributes “to the deaths of at least 21,300 people each day” as a result of the lack of access to food and health care in poor countries.
- Ellison served as CEO of Oracle until 2014, when he stepped down to become the CTO.
- Gains by Zhong-led beverage producer Nongfu Spring offset a decline in shares of his Covid test supplier Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy after the country eased pandemic restrictions at the end of last year.
- Warren Buffett is once again one of the five richest people in the world.
- Sixty-one people who appeared on the 2020 list dropped off, the smallest number of drop-offs in a decade.
- He is also a generous philanthropist who is committed to making a difference in the world.
Musk was also the world’s richest person for most of 2022—until December 2022, when a drop in Tesla’s share price pushed down the value of his fortune. The reasons Venezuela is in crisis are years of hyperinflation, violence, and food and medicine shortages. The country was once considered the richest in Latin America, thanks to having the largest 5 richest people in the world oil reserves in the world. But more than a decade of declining oil revenue and poor governance led to the collapse of the national economy, and the government has not been able to provide adequate social services. Italy has 51 billionaires, led by Giovanni Ferrero, who is executive chairman of his family’s namesake chocolate business.
Bezos is also known for creating a frugal company culture.
While one can argue about the ethics behind owning so much wealth in the world, there’s no denying that billionaires play a supersized role in shaping philanthropy, politics and the global economy. Warren Buffett is a true legend in the world of business and investing. He is a brilliant investor who has made a fortune for himself and for his shareholders. He is also a generous philanthropist who is committed to making the world a better place. He has invested in a variety of companies, including Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and 23andMe.
Unregistered migrants don’t necessarily receive the same protections or legal benefits in their host country. More than 6 million Venezuelans from every walk of life have left the country since 2014. They’ve left to find work, food, better healthcare, and stability. They marked the engagement with a party in August attended by guests like Bill Gates and Kris Jenner. At the time, the National Enquirer said it had obtained texts and explicit photos the couple had sent to each other. The publication also said at the time that it had “raunchy messages” between Bezos and Sanchez.
Sergey Brin
He is a strong advocate for giving back to society and has pledged to give away most of his wealth during his lifetime. Warren Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, one of the most successful investment companies in the world. He is also known as the “Oracle of Omaha” for his investment acumen. Gates stepped down from the board of Microsoft in 2020 but still spends 10% of his time working with teams at the software firm–including those at OpenAI, which Microsoft has backed. “This is every bit as important as the PC, as the internet,” Gates told Forbes in February, referring to generative artificial intelligence tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Warren Buffett is the world’s sixth richest person, worth $96 billion. It’s the first year since 1993 that the revered investor running Berkshire Hathaway has not appeared in the top five. Not that the 90-year-old Oracle of Omaha had a bad year—he’s still worth $28.5 billion more than he was on the 2020 list.
Billionaire Wealth
This year there are four people worth $100 billion or more—up from just one (Bezos) on last year’s list. Besides Bezos, Musk and Arnault, there’s Bill Gates, who ranks No. 4 at $124 billion, buoyed by the strength of shares he owns in Microsoft, Canadian National Railway and tractor maker Deere & Company. The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the country’s humanitarian and economic crisis. Borders with neighboring countries have shut down, schools closed, and hospitals have struggled with staff shortages and supplies. Venezuelan migrants who returned to the country after losing their jobs abroad after the pandemic have been unable to earn wages back home. Shortages of fuel, electricity, and clean water have sparked riots and left many migrants with no choice but to flee again.
Forbes first listed Gates as a billionaire in 1987; he was the richest person in the world from 1995 through 2017 (except in 2008 and from 2010 through 2013). Largely due to the $59 billion he has donated to the Gates Foundation, including a $20 billion gift in July 2022, he was overtaken as the world’s richest person in 2018 by Jeff Bezos. He and Melinda French Gates divorced in 2021; she received at least $6 billion in stock as part of the divorce settlement. Forbes estimates that Gates’ fortune fell by about $4 billion in August 2023. As a teenager, Gates became passionate about computer programming.
There are almost 30,000 families in the U.S. with assets of more than $100 million, Buffett’s among them. He now spends most of his time minding his Los Angeles basketball team. In April 2022, Ballmer’s Los Angeles landmark Forum Sports and Entertainment Arena in Inglewood got a new name, Kia Forum.
- Bezos hasn’t said whether he kept any of his stock after the initial public offering.
- Because stock prices and exchange rates fluctuate, net worths aren’t static; Forbes based their estimates on the data from March 5.
- Arnault’s father made millions in the construction business; to get his start, Arnault used $15 million of that fortune to buy Christian Dior.
- He has also donated millions of dollars to charity, including the Ellison Foundation, which supports education, healthcare, and environmental causes.
- Françoise Bettencourt Meyers inherited L’Oreal—which her grandfather founded—when her mother died in 2017.
- The former Microsoft CEO and owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers is $41 billion richer at the end of 2021 than he was at the start of the year.