The Hustler's Digest StaffThe list of the world’s wealthiest persons can vary from year to year, depending on certain people’s total net worth and financial performance. We will provide information about the wealthiest people based on the real-time billionaire’s index. This list will make you figure out who has the most money in the world. And will help to reveal some interesting facts about each of them.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the wealthiest individuals in the world are all worth more than $100 billion. Some individuals like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are among people worth $100 billion for some time, but most of them are newcomers.
Billionaires play a vital role in shaping the global economy, politics, and philanthropy. The individual on the wealthiest people’s list belongs to an exclusive club and wields more power. Many of them are technology giants with more shares of wealth still invested in the companies they have started.
The billionaires can still borrow against the wealth to avoid selling stock, deferring or eliminating heirs, and taxes on unrealized capital gains. Multi-millionaires can take advantage of tax deductions to offset reported income, leaving some on this list paying no income tax in recent years.
Who was the richest person in the world in 2020?
Richest people, with much of their wealth in publicly traded stocks, the net worth can fluctuate with the market valuation. For instance, Musk saw his net worth surge in 2021 due to an increase in the share price of Tesla. And Tesla shares rose nearly 50% in 2021 and he owns 15% of it.
However, Musk’s net worth dropped in 2022 due to falling share prices in Tesla. He sold many of his shares in Tesla to fund his acquisition of Twitter. By December 2022, Elon Musk became the second richest person in the world, whereas Bernard Arnault was leading by being the richest man in the world.
Simultaneously, Meta Platforms (META) founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has fallen from the top 10 richest people list in February 2022. His net worth was reported to be $43.7 billion in December 2022. But the company’s share price plunged after a disappointing earnings report.
If we specifically talk about the year 2020, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, became the world’s richest man as his net worth briefly topped $300 billion. He added $121 billion to his net worth in 2021 while adding $140 billion in 2020.
Who is the richest man in the world?
Bernard Arnault, co-founder and CEO of LVMH, is the wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of $172.9 billion. Whereas behind Arnault, Elon Musk is the co-founder and CEO of Tesla. Other billionaires with the most significant net worth include Gautam Adani and Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder), and the most renowned ones are Microsoft and Bill Gates.
Everyone desires to be on the world’s richest man list, but they say it’s all a question of luck. It would be unrealistic to believe that if you have a good mindset and a visionary approach, you can get into the wealthiest people list, so mostly it is a stroke of luck.
A rich man has costly products, automobiles, money and wealth building, or all his needs. But these people have a broad vision with a positive approach and work hard consistently.
Top 20 richest people in the world with their net worth
The list of the world’s wealthiest people can vary yearly, depending on their latest net worth and financial performance. We will provide you with the latest list of the world’s top 20 richest persons of the world according to the latest data.
According to Forbes, there are 2,668 billionaires in the world as of 2022, but we will enlist 20 richest people amongst them by knowing what their worth is.
1. Bernard Arnault
LVMH (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton) CEO and Chair, and his net worth is $179.1 billion. He owns Christian Dior Ownership Stake with 97.5% of that $132 billion total. Other Assets include Moelis and Company equity ($25 billion public asset) and $10.3 billion in cash.
His business is across an empire of more than 70 brands, including Louis Vuitton and Sephora. French businessman and Europe’s richest man Bernard Arnault previously earned a $100 billion fortune. LVMH brands include Louis Vuitton, Hennessey, Marc Jacobs and Sephora.
Most of Arnault’s wealth comes from his massive stake in Christian Dior SE, the holding company that controls 41.2% of LVMH. His shares in Christian Dior SE, plus an additional 6.2% in LVMH, are held through his family-owned holding company, Groupe Familia Arnault.
He was an engineer by training and showed his business acumen while working for his father’s construction firm in 1971. He converted Ferret-Savinel to a real estate company named Ferinel Inc. In 1979, he chaired the company until he acquired and reorganised luxury goods maker Financiere Agache in 1984. Eventually, selling all his holdings other than Christian Dior and Le Bon Marche. Then he was invited to invest in LVMH in 1987 and became the majority shareholder, chair of the board and CEO of the company two years later.
2. Elon Musk
Elon Musk, the co-founder and CEO of Tesla and one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, boasts a staggering net worth of $146.5 billion. Born in South Africa, Musk pursued his education in Canada before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned degrees in Physics and Economics.
Musk left a graduate physics program at Stanford University to launch Zip2, an early online navigation service. He then founded X.com, an online payment system that eBay acquired and transformed into PayPal Holdings.
Today, his electric car company, Tesla, holds a market value close to $800 billion, while his space venture, SpaceX, is worth around $100 billion. Tesla’s shares have surged by about 60% this year, propelling the company’s market cap to $1 trillion for the first time recently.
To address a $12 billion tax bill from a stock option package, Musk has sold millions of Tesla shares. Since funding Tesla Motors in 2004 and becoming its CEO, Musk has expanded the company’s offerings to include energy storage devices, automobile accessories, and solar power systems following the acquisition of SolarCity.
As CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX, Musk drives advancements in space launch technology. In 2020, a 740% increase in Tesla shares catapulted him up the wealth rankings, and in December 2020, Tesla’s inclusion in the S&P 500 marked it as the largest company to join the index.
In January 2021, Musk claimed the title of the world’s wealthiest person, maintaining this position until a decline in Tesla’s share price in December 2022. He even engaged his Twitter followers on whether to sell 10% of his Tesla stock to address tax avoidance criticisms, subsequently selling shares worth $16.4 billion throughout 2021.
The valuation boosts in Tesla and SpaceX in 2021 continued to elevate Musk’s wealth, reaching a peak net worth of $340 billion in November 2021. In April 2022, he initiated a bid to privatize Twitter with $21 billion of his own funds. After a brief withdrawal and a subsequent legal battle with Twitter, Musk finalized the acquisition in 2022, securing an almost 80% stake in the social media giant.
3. Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon, holding an estimated net worth of $189.8 billion and ranks among the richest on the earth. His position remained the same even after divorcing his wife in 2019 and transferring a quarter of his stake in Amazon to her.
Bezos is the founder of Amazon, who started it in 1994 from his garage in Seattle. The e-commerce giant has reaped the benefits of this coronavirus pandemic due to hype in online shopping.
Amazon’s pattern of diversification is evident in some of its unexpected expansions, and it is expected to become the world’s largest retailer by 2024. Bezos owned as much as 16% of Amazon in 2019 before transferring 4% to his former wife as part of his divorce proceedings.
4.Bill Gates
Bill Gates is the co-founder of Microsoft (MSFT) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with a net worth of $135 billion. However, Bill Gates founded the software giant Microsoft. Eventually, he sold away much of his stake in the company, retaining 1% of the shares while investing the rest in stocks and other assets.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the world’s largest private charitable foundation. Bill has much of his net worth in Cascade Investment LLC, which is a privately-held investment vehicle that owns a variety of stocks, including Canadian National Railway (CNR), Deere (DE), and Republic Services (RSG), along with private investments in real estate and energy.
While attending Harvard University in 1975, Bill started working alongside his childhood friend to develop new software for the original microcomputers. The project succeeded, but Bill Gates dropped out of the university in his junior year and founded Microsoft with Allen.
Microsoft is the largest software company in the world with the production of a line of personal computers. They also provide email services through its exchange server and sell video game systems and associated game devices. They heavily invested in cloud services as well.
Gates shifted from the company’s CEO to the board chair in 2008 while he joined Berkshire Hathaway’s board in 2004. At the same time, he stepped down from both boards in March 2020.
5. Warren Buffet
Warren Buffet is famous as the Oracle of Omaha, one of the most successful investors of all time. He deals with Berkshire Hathaway, which owns over 60 large and well-known companies. The son of the US congressman bought his first stock at the age of 11, and he filed his first tax return at 14.
The Buffet is a buy-and-hold investor with a net worth of $110 billion. Its portfolio-owned subsidiaries include interests in insurance, energy distribution, railroads and consumer products. In addition, Buffet is a notable Bitcoin sceptic. He dedicated much of his wealth to philanthropy.
Between 2006 and 2020, Buffett gave away $41 billion, mainly to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and his children’s charities. He still serves as CEO, but in 2021 he hinted his successor Gregory Abel would be head of Berkshire’s non-insurance operations.
6.Mark Zuckerberg
The most important member of the top 10 under the age of 40, Mark Zuckerberg, is increasing over time. He owns a 13% stake in Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. He is the CEO of both media handles, which has grown in value by more than 20% this year.
7. Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison has a net worth of $109 billion that he has earned from Oracle, which is a software firm. He quit as the company’s CEO in 2014 and functions as the chairman of the board and chief technology advisor of the company.
Ellison has been on the board of Tesla since December 2018. Then he purchased 3 million shares; even now, he owns nearly all of the Hawaiian island Lanai. Ellison founded Software Development Laboratories alongside Oates and Miner. Then the company released Oracle, the first commercial relational database program to use Structured Query Language.
The database program proved so popular that it would change its name to Oracle System Corporation in 1982. Oracle is the world’s second-largest software company, providing a wide variety of cloud computing programs. Oracle acquired numerous large companies, including human resources management systems, customer relationship management applications, enterprise infrastructure software, and hardware and software development.
Ellison has invested heavily in luxury real estate over the last decade. Although he is known for extravagant spending, his single most impressive acquisition was the $300 million purchase of the Hawaiian island of Lanai, where the billionaire has lived since 2020. He built a hydroponics farm and a luxury spa on the island.
He is focused on philanthropy in medical research while giving $200 million to the University of Southern California for the cancer research centre. Moreover, he backed the Oracle Team USA sailing team, which won America’s cup racing series.
8. Steve Ballmer
The former Microsoft CEO and owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers are $41 billion richer. Ballmer’s net worth benefitted from the popularity of tech stocks like Microsoft, which grew in value by more than 50%. Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 and became its CEO in 2000, succeeding Bill Gates.
9. Sergey Brin
Google’s co-founder’s net worth grew by $45 billion, making it above $100 billion. The 48-year-old owns around 38 million shares in Alphabet and sits on the company’s board.
10.Mukesh Ambani
The founder and chairman of Reliance Industries have interests across petrochemicals, oil and gas, retail and telecom. It is the world’s largest oil refiner and one of the world’s most valuable companies. Reliance operations include oil and gas, petrochemicals, refining, retail and media.
However, he has a significant stake in Reliance and owns Antilia, a real estate complex in Mumbai worth $410 million. Ambani also owns the Mumbai Indians, a professional cricket team. The launch of 4G phone service in the Indian telecom market by Reliance.
11. Larry Page
The co-founder of Google, with a net worth of $81.4 billion. He invested in Planetary Resources, the famed space exploration company, funding “Flying car” and other startup companies, Kitty Hawk and Opener.
He came up with the idea of improving internet data extraction and devised new search engine technology and the ability to assess links to a page. Google is the world’s dominant internet search engine, accounting for more than 92% of global search requests.
After acquiring Android in 2015, Google released the Android mobile phone operating system in 2008. It was among early investors in Planetary Resources, a space exploration and asteroid mining company.
12. Gautam Adani
The founder of the Adani group, he put in money some of his multimillion-dollar corporate riches in quality sectors. It involves the energy industry, the logistics zone, the agriculture zone, the aerospace industry and much more.
The Adani Group is a global strength that controls port operations and plans in India. The outcome of the company’s success. The Adani group is a multinational conglomerate dealing with port operations and developments in India.
13. Carlos Slim Helu
Carlos Slim and his family control American Movil, the most prominent mobile telecom firm in Latin America, with a net worth of $90.9 billion. Moreover, he owns stakes in Mexican constructions, New York Times, mining and various real estate companies.
14. Francoise Bettencourt Meyers
She is the richest woman in the world, with a net worth of $92.3 billion. She is the granddaughter of the founder of L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, and her family owns 33% of stocks in the company with phenomenal growth.
15. Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg is an American businessman, politician, author, and philanthropist, and the primary owner of Bloomberg is the co-founder and CEO of the company. An elected 108th mayor of New York City, he held office for three consecutive terms while winning re-election in 2005 and 2009.
16. Zhong Shanshan
The Chinese billionaire is the founder of the largest beverage company in China, and his net worth is $73.3 billion. He held a variety of jobs, including construction worker and news reporter. He owns Nongfu Spring, the largest beverage company, and is chairman of the pharma company, Wantai.
17. Jim Walton
He is the youngest son of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, having 44% stakes in Arvest Bank. He, along with two other heirs of the Walmart founder, owns more than half of the company’s stakes
18. Alice Walton
If we talk about the richest women in the world, Alice Walton is among them, with a net worth of $68.7 billion. The daughter of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, focused on curating art instead of working for Walmart. She instituted a museum called Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. She and her brother issue bonds to help charter schools invest in facilities.
19. Rob Walton
Robson Walton is the eldest son of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, with a net worth of $68.4 billion. He and the other two siblings of the Walmart founder own more than half of the shares of their father’s company.
20. Changpeng Zhao
The founder and CEO of Binance, which is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. Changpeng Zhao was born in Jiangsu, China but moved to Canada at a very young age.
Who is the most famous among the top 100 richest people in the world?
The richest man in the world is LVMHF chairman Bernard Arnault. LVMHF provides high society with Louis Vuitton luggage, Christian Dior Couture, Tiffany jewellery, Dom Perignon champagne, and many French luxury goods. A first European who rose to this epitome due to business in the old continent.
His net worth is $171 billion, which ousted Musk from being the wealthiest man on earth; he keeps a lower profile and is not even personally active on any powerful social media platforms.
Conclusion
Wondering who holds the title for the wealthiest individual in the world? The ranking of the world’s richest people fluctuates annually based on their net worth fluctuations. We strive to bring you the most current information by updating our list of the top 20 richest people globally, along with intriguing insights into their lives.
If you aspire to join the ranks of these affluent billionaires, your best bet lies in either becoming a pioneer in technology or excelling as a luxury retail magnate. Our advice? Stick to the basics and concentrate on value investing.
Remember, the largest fortunes often emerge from brilliant ideas, creativity, determination, and the strategic use of connections to establish some of the biggest enterprises around the globe.
