Date: 2025-05-09 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00027644
WEALTH
BILLIONAIRES
Forbes’ 38th Annual World’s Billionaires List: Facts And Figures 2024
BILLIONAIRES
Forbes’ 38th Annual World’s Billionaires List: Facts And Figures 2024
Christian Louboutin, Sam Altman, Elon Musk
Illustration by Kevin McGivern for forbes
Original article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2024/04/02/forbes-38th-annual-worlds-billionaires-list-facts-and-figures-2024/
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
For some reason the idea of 'nouveau riche' is playing in my mind! I remember when I was quite young learning something about the British aristocracy and the economic or financial structure of society. But the money numbers in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s were much smaller then than they are now!
But I am not sure that the reality has changed over time in the same way that the value of the money metric has changed over time!
While there is real rigor in the way numbers are applied within corporate accounting (for example), but I am not at all sure that much rigor exists when it comes to establishing 'value' associated with the ownership (stocks and shares) of a company.
According to this article in Forbes:
The planet has a record 2,781 billionaires who are worth a record $14.2 trillion.I understand how these numbers are computed ... but for the life of me I cannot understand what these numbers actually mean! In fact, my conclusion is that these numbers are essentially meaningless. But worse ... these numbers change based on matters that have nothng to do with any related issue.
Accounting has been a useful management tool for a long time ... maybe the long time is several thousand years, or perhaps 400 years, or simply back to Victorian times or when I was in my 20s in the 1960s ... but it cannot do what is needed any more in the fast moving and highly stressed and interconnected modern world.
Conventional economic or financial accounting remains important, but now must be paired or linked to other metrics to assess and manage performance. Optimising for financial performance without taking into consideration social and environmental impacts cannot be accepted any more ... yet this is what we have been doing for far too long and continue to be doing with little imperative to change to a better mangement information regime any time soon!
I was becoming aware of these issues almost 50 years ago ... yet nothing at scale has been done to upgrade the management regime so that our economic system would trend to a better place. Rather, most management regimes ignore social and environment impacts almost completely putting their total focus on profit performance to the detriment of every stakeholder except the owners!
I am more aware than most about the way the world works ... but the scale of the problem at this time, came as something of a shock!
The good news may be that there is more wealth creation in the modern world than I realised, much of which is destined for 'storage' in some form or another rather than being deployed to address the critical problems that need attention.
Bottom line ... a 21st century rebuild of 19th century accounting is needed ... and needed as fast as possible!
Peter Burgess
Apr 2, 2024,06:00am EDT ... Updated Apr 2, 2024, 11:27am EDT
The planet has a record 2,781 billionaires who are worth a record $14.2 trillion. Here’s who’s up, who’s down, who’s new and who’s off the ranking.
By Chase Peterson-Withorn, Forbes Staff
It’s been a banner year for the mega-wealthy. Forbes found an unprecedented 2,781 billionaires around the globe for this year’s World’s Billionaires list—141 more than in 2023 and 26 more than the previous record, set in 2021. The super-rich are also richer than ever, with their combined wealth hitting $14.2 trillion—$2 trillion more than just a year ago and $1.1 trillion above the previous record, also set in 2021.
As with the economy in general, the money is concentrated at the very top. There are now a record 14 people who are members of the $100 Billion Club, the elite group of people whose fortunes stretch into 12 digits. That’s up from just one four years ago. These lucky few are worth $2 trillion in all, meaning just 0.5% of the world’s 2,781 billionaires hold 14% of all billionaire wealth.
The richest of all is Bernard Arnault, who holds the No. 1 spot for the second year in a row. The French luxury goods kingpin is worth an estimated $233 billion, $22 billion more than in 2023 thanks to another record year for his conglomerate LVMH, the company behind brands such as Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co. and Sephora. He’s $38 billion richer than the world’s No. 2, Elon Musk, who is worth an estimated $195 billion. Just behind him, at No. 3, is Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who is worth an estimated $194 billion. Forbes used stock prices and exchange rates from March 8, 2024 for this year’s ranking. (For daily movements of fortunes, see our Real-Time tracker.)
Two-thirds of the planet’s billionaires are richer than a year ago. No one has gained more, in sheer dollar terms, than Mark Zuckerberg, who has benefited—to the tune of a $116.2 billion jump in a single year—thanks to Meta stock nearly tripling amid cost-cutting layoffs and big bets on AI and the metaverse. Zuck is No. 4 on Forbes’ 2024 ranking, worth an estimated $177 billion, the richest he’s ever been. Oracle’s Larry Ellison, worth an estimated $141 billion, rounds out the top five.
WORLDWIDE BILLIONAIRE WEALTH
Zuckerberg and Ellison are just two of the scores of technology moguls who are significantly richer than a year ago. The AI gold rush is on, helping to add more than a dozen newcomers working in artificial intelligence to the ranks, including Super Micro Computer’s Charles Liang (worth an estimated $6.1 billion)—and his wife, Sara Liu ($1.5 billion); Advanced Micro Device’s Lisa Su ($1.3 billion); and longtime Nvidia board member Harvey Jones ($1 billion). OpenAI’s Sam Altman is also now a billionaire, thanks to investments he made when he was president of startup incubator Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019, an early bet on Stripe and stakes in Reddit and nuclear fusion startup Helion. Rabid demand for AI has also boosted tech stocks generally, pushing the combined wealth of the world’s tech billionaires up by some $750 billion—to $2.6 trillion, more than any other industry—in just a year.
Celebrities are getting richer, too. Taylor Swift ($1.1 billion) joins the 2024 ranks—the first musician to do it based solely on songwriting and performing—after the record-breaking first leg of her Eras tour. TV producer Dick Wolf ($1.2 billion), the mastermind behind shows such as Law & Order and Chicago, is also new to the billionaires list, as is Magic Johnson, the NBA hall-of-famer who really made his stash after retirement, through savvy business deals and stakes in several sports teams, one of the best paths to getting rich(er). They join nearly a dozen other famous A-list billionaires, including George Lucas ($5.5 billion), Michael Jordan ($3.2 billion) and Kim Kardashian ($1.7 billion).
Inside Forbes' 38th Annual World's Billionaires List
In all, 265 fresh faces are new to the World’s Billionaires. The richest of all is Italy’s Andrea Pignataro, a former Salomon Brothers bond trader behind financial software firm ION Group. He’s worth an estimated $27.5 billion. Other notable newcomers include the founder of the Raising Cane’s fast-food chain Todd Graves ($9.1 billion); Maggie Gu, Molly Miao and Ren Xiaoqing ($4.2 billion each)—three cofounders of fast-fashion giant Shein; iconic high-heel designer Christian Louboutin ($1.2 billion); and Elon Musk pal, and Tesla and SpaceX investor, Antonio Gracias ($1.1 billion).
The United States is, once again, the country with the most billionaire citizens, with a record-breaking 813, worth $5.7 trillion (compared to 735, worth $4.5 trillion, in 2023). China remains second, despite troubles in the Asian nation, with 473 (including Hong Kong) worth $1.7 trillion. India, meanwhile, is surging. There are now 200 Indian billionaires, the most ever, worth $954 billion.
WHERE ARE THE BILLIONAIRES
The United States still boasts the highest number of billionaires, with a record 813, followed by mainland China (406), India (200) and Germany (132).
Women are still woefully underrepresented, accounting for just 369 of the planet’s 2,781 billionaires—or about 13%, the same as last year. The richest woman is once again Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, the Fresh heiress to the L'Oréal fortune. She’s worth an estimated $99.5 billion. The richest self-made woman remains Swiss shipping tycoon Rafaela Aponte-Diamant ($33.1 billion).
Overall, 66% of the world’s billionaires are self-made—meaning they founded or cofounded their company or established their own fortune, rather than inheriting it–down from 69% in 2023. That includes nearly all 17 of the cryptocurrency billionaires on the 2024 list, who have come roaring out of the “crypto winter,” thanks to Bitcoin and other crypto assets trading at record highs.
One reason behind the declining share of self-made billionaires is the start of the great wealth transfer around the world. For instance, when Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi died last year, his five children took his place in the ranks. The average age of a billionaire is 66. The oldest list member is 102-year-old insurance tycoon George Joseph ($1.7 billion), one of 425 people who are 80 or older. The youngest billionaire around the globe is 19-year-old Livia Voigt, a Brazilian heiress whose grandfather cofounded electrical equipment producer WEG. Still in university, she’s two months older than the second-youngest billionaire Forbes found, Clemente Del Vecchio, one of several heirs to the fortune of Leonardo Del Vecchio, the founder of eyewear colossus EssilorLuxottica. There are 25 people on the list who are 33 years old or younger, though only 7 are self-made (none of whom are under 30).
Still—even in such boom times for billionaire wealth—bankruptcy, scandal and stock crashes helped knock 189 people off the Forbes list. Among them: Bolt’s Ryan Breslow, whose payment startup has unraveled; bankrupt Austrian real estate mogul Rene Benko; and Hui Ka Yan, the embattled chairman of property developer China’s troubled Evergrande Group. Another 32 people from the 2023 list died over the past year, including former President of Chile Sebastián Piñera, Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, investor Charlie Munger and singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett.
Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list is a ranking of every person on the planet with a net worth of $1 billion U.S. dollars or more as of March 8, 2024. When possible, we met with billionaires in person or spoke with them virtually or by phone. We also interviewed their employees, handlers, asset managers and financial advisors, rivals, peers and attorneys. Uncovering their fortunes required us to pore over thousands of Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory documents, court filings, probate records and news articles. We took into account all types of assets: stakes in public and private companies, real estate, art, yachts, planes, ranches, vineyards, jewelry, car collections and more. We factored in known debt and charitable giving. We exclude dispersed family fortunes, though we list wealth belonging to the immediate family of the living founder of a fortune under the founder’s name. In some cases, we also include wealth held by the immediate family member of an heir. In either of those instances, you’ll see “& family” in a person’s listing.
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New Billionaires 2024: Taylor Swift, Magic Johnson And 263 Others Join The Ranks This Year ... By Segun Olakoyenikan
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Chase Peterson-Withorn ... Chase Peterson-Withorn is a senior editor at Forbes who oversees The Forbes 400 list. His reporting on billionaires has stretched from America's largest cardboard box factory to Donald Trump's penthouse. He studied political science and economics at Ohio University, and can be reached at cpeterson-withorn@forbes.com or tips@forbes.com.
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