The company 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 it after all. The deal officially closed in October 2022, giving him a 79% stake in the company. In 2004, Musk became a major funder https://www.bookstime.com/articles/tax-liability of Tesla Motors (now Tesla), which led to his current position as CEO of the electric vehicle company. In addition to its line of electric automobiles, Tesla produces energy storage devices, automobile accessories, and, through its acquisition of SolarCity in 2016, solar power systems.

Bernard Arnault, head of luxury goods giant LVMH, is up $53 billion–more than any billionaire, and enough to vault him into No. 1 spot for the first time. Nike founder Phil Knight hung up his chairman hat in 2016, but he and his family are still worth $49.9 billion. 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). Because stock prices and exchange rates fluctuate, net worths aren’t static; Forbes based their estimates on the data from March 5. Brin and fellow billionaire Larry Page co-founded Google in 1998, while the two were Ph.D. students at Stanford. By contrast, last year’s youngest billionaire, Kylie Jenner, fell off the list after allegedly inflating her net worth.

#11 Francoise Bettencourt Meyers & family

See below for the full list of the world’s billionaires and our methodology. For daily updated net worths of all 2,640 billionaires, check out our real-time billionaires rankings. Forbes has been keeping track of the world’s billionaires since 1987.

He now owns the Los Angeles Clippers and focuses on philanthropic endeavors. Already a controlling shareholder in the French luxury goods company that owns Louis Vuitton, Arnault recently spent $538 million to further invest in the burgeoning LVMH stock. Like many tech execs, Page has peeled off a portion of his wealth and put it into futuristic startups. The founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, became billionaires at age 30.

#151 Ricardo Salinas Pliego & family

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, four years after starting the company, joined the list at 23 to become the youngest self-made billionaire. The number of billionaires in the U.S. increased 5% compared to last year, going from 720 super wealthy individuals 5 richest people in the world to 775. The richest of the rich are concentrated in states like Texas, California, and New York, but there is almost one billionaire in every single state. As of early August, Rihanna joins the billionaire’s club with an estimated $1.7 billion net worth.

Here’s a countdown of the 20 richest people on the planet by net worth as of spring 2022, as well as a look at who was bounced from Forbes’ 2021 list. Extreme wealth can be extremely volatile; just look at the huge shifts reflected in the latest definitive list of the world’s richest people. But a large number of moguls also saw their wealth soar, even as income inequality grew more dramatic and a pandemic ravaged the world. 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. Musk became the world’s richest person on June 8, 2023 and still ranks No. 1 on September 1. Tesla shares have risen nearly 140% since the start of the year, propelling Musk’s fortune higher.