The combined net worth of the world’s 500 richest people totaled $10 trillion last year. While Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s net worth doubled during the year, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae Yong’s net worth fell by nearly $1.5 billion.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, reported on December 31, the combined net worth of the world’s 500 richest individuals was $9.8 trillion as of the previous day. Bloomberg explains that this figure is comparable to the combined GDP of Germany, Japan, and Australia in 2023.
Their net worth growth totaled 1.5 trillion dollars last year, and eight U.S. tech moguls accounted for 43% of this increase.
Last week, Musk’s fortune reached $432 billion, a $203 billion increase from the previous year.
The gap between Musk and second-place Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($239 billion) reached $237 billion, marking the widest ever recorded between the two billionaires.
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg came in third with $207 billion, followed by Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison with $192 billion.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, who benefited from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, ranked 12th with a net worth increase of $70.3 billion to $114 billion during the year.
President-elect Donald Trump’s net worth rose by 109% to $6.47 billion, landing him in 471st place. This growth was mainly due to the rising stock price of Trump Media, the parent company of his social media platform, Truth Social.
In South Korea, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae Yong ranked 331st with $8.46 billion, while Meritz Financial Group Chairman Cho Jung-ho placed 408th with $7.16 billion.
While Samsung Electronics’ stock price fell 32.23% last year, Chairman Lee’s net worth declined 14.4% or 1.42 billion over the year. Chairman Cho’s net worth increased by $2.42 billion.
Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH and once the wealthiest man in the world, recorded a net worth of $176 billion, down $31.2 billion due to the sluggish luxury market. This was the most enormous net worth loss among the 500 wealthiest individuals, causing him to drop to fifth place.
In addition, the net worth of people in the cryptocurrency industry increased as the price of Bitcoin exceeded $100,000 for the first time in history. Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, ranked 25th, with a 55% increase in net worth to $53.3 billion.
Most Commented