The 10 Richest People in the World
Billionaires play an outsized role in shaping the global
economy, politics, and philanthropy. Forbes puts the number of billionaires in
the world at 2,668 in 2022. The most powerful among them is (TSLA) co-founder
and chief executive officer (CEO) Elon Musk, who became the richest man in the
world in 2022.
The individuals on this list belong to an even more
exclusive club and wield still more power. Many of them are founders of
technology giants, with much of their wealth still invested in the companies they
started.
These billionaires can, but still borrow against that wealth
to avoid selling stock, deferring (or eliminating for heirs) taxes on
unrealized capital gains in the process.
Multi-billionaires can also take advantage of a panoply of
tax deductions to offset reported income, leaving some on this list paying no
income tax in recent years.
With so much of their wealth in traded stocks, the net worth
of the richest can fluctuate with market valuations. For example, Musk saw his
net worth surge in 2021 thanks to the increase in the share price of Tesla
Tesla shares rose 50% in 2021. He currently owns 16% of the company. His net
worth as of September 2022 was $241 billion.
In contrast, Meta Platforms (META) founder and CEO Mark
Zuckerberg fell out of the top 10 in February 2022, when the company's share
price plunged after a disappointing earnings report. Zuckerberg's net worth was
reported to be $36.1 billion in November 2022.
Below are the 10 wealthiest people on the planet as of the
same date, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. All figures are
current as of Nov. 1, 2022, unless otherwise stated.
Elon Musk
Age: 51
House: Texas
Co-founder and CEO: Tesla
Net Worth: $203 billion
Tesla Ownership Stake: 15% ($90.6 billion)
Other Assets: Space Exploration Technologies ($46.9 billion
private asset), The Boring Company ($3.33 billion private asset), Twitter
($16.2 billion public asset)
Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. He was born in
South Africa and attended a university in Canada before transferring to the
University of Pennsylvania, where he earned bachelor's degrees in physics and
economics. Two days after enrolling in a graduate physics program at Stanford
University, Musk deferred attendance to launch Zip2, one of the earliest online
navigation services. He reinvested a part of the proceeds from this startup to
create X.com, the online payment system that was sold to eBay (EBAY) and became
PayPal Holdings (PYPL).
In 2004, Musk became a major funder of Tesla Motors (now
Tesla), which led to his current position as CEO of the electric vehicle
company.
Also, to its line of electric automobiles, Tesla produces
energy storage devices, automobile accessories, and, through its acquisition of
SolarCity in 2016, solar power systems.
Musk is also CEO and chief engineer of Space Exploration
Technologies (SpaceX), a developer of space launch rockets.
In 2020, Tesla shares soared 740% to propel Musk up the wealth rankings. In December 2020, Tesla joined the S&P 500, becoming the largest company added. In January 2021, Musk became the richest person in the world—a title he's held since then.
Musk asked his Twitter (TWTR) audience on Nov. 6, 2021,
whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock, framing the issue as a response
to criticism of unrealized capital gains to avoiding taxes.
He proceeded to sell shares worth $16.4 billion over the
rest of 2021.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, cited
a media report that Musk paid no income tax for 2018 to argue for the adoption
of a wealth tax. "And if you opened your eyes for two seconds, you would
realize I will pay more taxes than any American in history this year,"
Musk responded on Twitter.
Thanks to the surge in Tesla shares in 2021 and private
transactions boosting the reported valuation of SpaceX, Musk's lead in the
global wealth rankings has continued to grow. His net worth hit a high of $340
billion in November 2021.
In April 2022, Musk began a campaign to take Twitter
private, which culminated in a $44 billion buyout. Musk planned to fund the
deal with $21 billion of his own capital. In the run-up to the buyout
announcement, Musk sold 9.6 million shares of Tesla, valued at roughly $8.5
billion.
In July 2022, Musk decided to back out of the Twitter
buyout. Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk to force the buyout to go through.
Musk countersued the company but then reversed course and declared he was
willing to buy Twitter after all. The deal closed in October 2022, giving him
an almost 80% stake in the company.
Bernard Arnault
Age: 73
House: Paris
CEO and Chair: LVMH (LVMUY)
Net Worth: $138 billion
Christian Dior Ownership Stake: 97.5% ($109 billion total)
Other Assets: Moelis & Company equity ($20.9 billion public asset), Hermès equity (undisclosed stake), and $8.85 billion in cash
French national Bernard Arnault is the chair and CEO of
LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company. 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 extra 6.2% in LVMH,
are held through his family-owned holding company, Groupe Familial Arnault.
An engineer by training, Arnault first showed his business acumen while working for his father’s construction firm, Ferret-Savinel, taking charge of the company in 1971. He converted Ferret-Savinel to a real estate company named Férinel Inc. in 1979.
Arnault remained Férinel's chair for another six years,
until he acquired and reorganized luxury goods maker Financière Agache in 1984,
selling all its holdings other than Christian Dior and Le Bon Marché.
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.
Gautam Adani
Age: 60
House: Gurgaon, India
Founder and Chair: Adani Group
Net Worth: $125 billion
Adani Enterprises, Power. and Transmissions Ownership
Stakes: 75% each ($72.24 billion)
Other Assets: 65% of Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone
($12.1 billion public asset), 61% of Adani Green Energy ($23.8 billion public
asset), 37% of Adani Total Gas ($17.9 billion public asset)
Gautam Adani, the founder of Adani Group, surpassed Mukesh Ambani
in March 2022 as the richest person in Asia. Through his ownership of the Adani
Group, Adani owns major stakes in six key Indian companies, including a 75%
stake in Adani Enterprises, Adani Power, and Adani Transmissions, as well as a
65% stake in Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone, 61% stake in Adani Green
Energy, and 37% stake in Adani Total Gas.
The combined market capitalization of companies owned by the
Adani Group is $246.8 billion (as of Nov. 1, 2022). Adani entered the power
generation market in 2009 with Adani Power. Adani created Adani Enterprises in
1988 to import and export commodities. In 1994, his company was granted
approval to develop a harbor facility at Mundra Port, which is now the largest
private port in India.
Adani dropped out of college and before worked in the diamond trade. Adani now has the largest port operator, closely-held thermal coal producer, and coal trader in India. In 2020, he purchased a 74% stake in Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, India's second-busiest airport.
The billionaire was kidnapped and held for ransom in 1997.
Adani was also in Mumbai’s Taj hotel during the 2008 terrorist attack.
Jeff Bezos
Age: 58
House: Washington
Founder and Executive Chair: Amazon (AMZN)
Net Worth: $126 billion
Amazon Ownership Stake: 10% ($102 billion)
Other Assets: Blue Origin ($9.15 billion private asset), The
Washington Post ($250 million private asset), and $14.1 billion in cash
In 1994, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com in a garage in
Seattle, shortly after he resigned from the hedge fund giant D.E. Shaw.
He had pitched the idea of an online bookstore to his former
boss David E. Shaw, who wasn’t interested.
Though Amazon started out selling books, it has since
morphed into a one-stop shop for everything under the sun and is expected to
overtake Walmart as the world’s largest retailer by 2024. Amazon's pattern of
constant diversification is evident in some of its unexpected expansions, which
include acquiring Whole Foods in 2017 and entering the pharmacy business the
same year.
Bezos owned as much as 16% of Amazon in 2019 before transferring 4% to his former wife MacKenzie Scott as part of their divorce proceedings. In 2020, Amazon’s share price jumped 76% on the heightened demand for online shopping amid the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 5, 2021, Bezos stepped down as CEO of the e-commerce giant, becoming its executive chair.
Bezos took Amazon public in 1997 and went on to become the
first man since Bill Gates in 1999 to achieve a net worth of more than $100
billion.
Bezos’ other projects include aerospace company Blue Origin,
The Washington Post (which he purchased in 2013), and the 10,000-year
clock—also known as the Long Now.
On July 20, 2021, Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer
Funk, and Dutch student Oliver Daemen completed Blue Origin's first successful
crewed flight, reaching an altitude of more than 66 miles before landing.
Bezos' wealth peaked at $211 billion in the same month.
Bill Gates
Age: 67
House: Washington
Co-founder: Microsoft (MSFT)
Net Worth: $111 billion
Microsoft Ownership Stake: 1.3% ($23.9 billion)
Other Assets: Cascade Investment LLC ($51.66 billion public
assets), $54 billion in cash
While attending Harvard University in 1975, Bill Gates went
to work alongside his childhood friend Paul Allen to develop new software for
the original microcomputers. Following this project’s success, Gates dropped
out of Harvard during his junior year and founded Microsoft with Allen.
The largest software company in the world, Microsoft also
produces a line of personal computers, provides email services through its Exchange
server, and sells video game systems and associated game devices. It has
recently invested in cloud services.
Gates shifted from the company's CEO to the role of board
chair in 2008. He joined Berkshire Hathaway’s board in 2004.
He stepped down from both boards on March 13, 2020.
Bill Gates has much of his net worth in Cascade Investment LLC. Cascade is a privately-held investment vehicle that owns a variety of stocks including Canadian National Railway (CNR), Deere (DE), and Republic Services (RSG), as well as private investments in real estate and energy.
In 2000, Gates' two philanthropic organizations—the William
H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation—merged to create the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation, still co-chaired by Gates and his ex-wife,
Melinda French Gates.
Through the foundation, they have spent billions to fight
polio and malaria.
The foundation pledged $50 million in 2014 to help fight
Ebola.
As of 2021, the foundation had spent more than $1.9 billion
to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2010, alongside Warren Buffett, Bill Gates launched the
Giving Pledge, a campaign encouraging the wealthy to commit to donating most of
their wealth to philanthropic causes.
Bill and Melinda French Gates divorced on Aug. 2, 2021.
With the divorce, roughly $5 billion in equities was
transferred to French Gates.
Bill Gates is the largest private owner of farmland in the
U.S. with over 268,000 acres.
Warren Buffett
Age: 92
House: Nebraska
CEO: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)
Net Worth: $103 billion
Berkshire Hathaway Ownership Stake: 16% ($102 billion)
Other Assets: $1.05 billion in cash
The most famous living value investor, Warren Buffett filed
his first tax return in 1944 at age 14, declaring earnings from his boyhood
paper route.
He first bought shares in a textile company called Berkshire
Hathaway in 1962, becoming the majority shareholder by 1965. Buffett expanded
the company's holdings to insurance and other investments in 1967.
Berkshire Hathaway is now a $657 billion-dollar market cap
company, with a single share of stock (Class A shares) trading at more than
$443,841 as of Nov. 1, 2022.
known as the Oracle of Omaha, Buffett is a buy-and-hold
investor who built his fortune by acquiring undervalued companies.
More recently, Berkshire Hathaway has invested in large,
well-known companies.
Its portfolio of wholly owned subsidiaries includes
interests in insurance, energy distribution, and railroads as well as consumer
products.
Buffett is a notable Bitcoin skeptic.
Buffett has dedicated much of his wealth to philanthropy.
Between 2006 and 2020, he gave away $41 billion—to the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation and his children’s charities.
Buffett launched the Giving Pledge alongside Bill Gates in
2010.
Now 92 years old, Buffett still serves as CEO, but in 2021
he hinted that his successor might be Gregory Abel, head of Berkshire’s
non-insurance operations.
Larry Ellison
Age: 78
House: Hawaii
Co-founder, Chair, and CTO: Oracle (ORCL)
Net Worth: $93.7 billion
Oracle Ownership Stake: 40%+ ($65.6 billion)
Other Assets: Tesla equity ($10.2 billion public asset),
$17.2 billion in cash and real estate
Larry Ellison was born in New York City to a 19-year-old
single mother. After dropping out of the University of Chicago in 1966, Ellison
moved to California and worked as a computer programmer. In 1973, he joined the
electronics company Ampex, where he met future partners Ed Oates and Bob Miner.
Three years later, Ellison moved to Precision Instruments, serving as the company’s
vice president of research and development.
In 1977, Ellison founded Software Development Laboratories
alongside Oates and Miner.
Two years later, the company released Oracle, the first
commercial relational database program to use Structured Query Language. The
database program proved so popular that SDL would change its name to Oracle
Systems Corporation in 1982. Ellison gave up the CEO role at Oracle in 2014
after 37 years.
He joined Tesla's board in December 2018 and stepped down in
June 2022.
Oracle is the world's second-largest software company,
providing a wide variety of cloud computing programs as well as Java and Linux
code and the Oracle Exadata computing platform.
Oracle has acquired many large companies, including human
resources management systems provider PeopleSoft in 2005, customer relationship
management applications provider Siebel in 2006, enterprise infrastructure
software provider BEA Systems in 2008, and hardware-and-software developer Sun
Microsystems in 2009.
In December 2021, Oracle agreed to buy medical records software provider Cerner (CERN) for $28.3 billion in cash.
Long known for extravagant spending, Ellison has invested in
luxury real estate over the last decade. his single most impressive acquisition
was the $300 million purchase of the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai in 2012,
where the billionaire has lived since 2020. Ellison has built a hydroponics
farm and a luxury spa on the island.
Ellison has focused his philanthropy on medical research. In
2016, he gave $200 million to the University of Southern California for a new
cancer research center.
Ellison backed the Oracle Team USA sailing team, which won
the America's Cup racing series in 2010 and 2013.
Larry Page
Age: 49
House: California
Co-founder and Board Member: Alphabet (GOOG)
Net Worth: $87.8 billion
Alphabet Ownership Stake: 6% ($73.7 billion total)
Other Assets: $14.1 billion in cash
Like several of the tech billionaires on this list, Larry
Page embarked on his path to fame and fortune in a college dorm room. While
attending Stanford University in 1995, Page and his friend Sergey Brin came up
with the idea of improving internet data extraction. The duo devised a new
search engine technology they dubbed Backrub after its ability to assess links
to a page.
From there, Page and Brin went on to found Google in 1998,
with Page serving as CEO of the company until 2001, and again between 2011 and
2019.
Google is the world's dominant internet search engine,
accounting for more than 92% of global search requests.
In 2006, the company purchased YouTube, the top platform for
user-submitted videos.
After acquiring Android in 2005, Google released the Android
mobile phone operating system in 2008.
Google reorganized in 2015, becoming a subsidiary of Alphabet, a holding company.
Page was among early investors in Planetary Resources, a
space exploration and asteroid-mining company. Established in 2009, the company
was acquired by blockchain firm ConsenSys in 2018 amid funding problems.
He has also shown an interest in flying car companies,
investing in both Kitty Hawk and Opener.
Shares of Google soared almost 50% in 2021, moving Page and
Brin up the billionaire list. Page's net worth went from below $52 billion in
March 2020 to the current $87.8 billion.
Mukesh Ambani
Age: 65
House: Mumbai, India
Owner: Reliance Industries
Net Worth: $87.6 billion
Reliance Ownership Stake: 42% ($84.2 billion total)
Other Assets: $410 million in real estate
Mukesh Ambani is the chairman and managing director of
Reliance Industries, the world's largest oil refiner and one of the world's most
valuable companies.
The conglomerate was founded by Ambani's father, Dhirubhai Ambani in 1966 as a textiles company and is now one of the leading segments of India's economy. Reliance's operations include oil and gas, petrochemicals, refining, retail, and media.
About half of Ambani's wealth is derived from his stake in
Reliance, which amounts to 42% of the public company. He owns Antilia, a real
estate complex in Mumbai that's worth $410 million. Ambani also owns the Mumbai
Indians, a professional cricket team.
In 2016, Ambani launched a 4G phone network across India,
netting more than 420 million subscribers, and is planning to launch 5G
services.
Sergey Brin
Age: 49
House: California
Co-founder and Board Member: Alphabet (GOOG)
Net Worth: $84 billion
Alphabet Ownership Stake: 6% ($69.9 billion total)
Other Assets: $14.1 billion in cash
Sergey Brin was born in Moscow, Russia, moving to the U.S.
with his family when he was six in 1979. After co-founding Google with Larry
Page in 1998, Brin became Google's president of technology when Eric Schmidt
took over as CEO in 2001. He held the same post at the Alphabet holding company
after it was established in 2015, stepping down in 2019 when Sundar Pichai took
over as CEO.
Also, to its dominant internet search engine, Google offers
a suite of online tools and services known as Google Workspace, which includes
Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Meet, Google Chat, Google Docs,
Google Sheets, Google Slides, and more.
Google also offers a variety of electronic devices, including Pixel smartphones, computers, and tablets, Nest smart home devices, and Stadia gaming platform.
Brin spent much of 2019 focusing on X, Alphabet’s research
laboratory responsible for innovative technologies like Waymo self-driving cars
and Google Glass smart glasses.
He has donated millions of dollars to Parkinson’s disease
research, partnering with The Michael J. Fox Foundation.
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