The list of the world’s richest billionaires has seen significant changes in the last three years as a result of the pandemic, economic slowdown, recession, and geopolitics. Here is the most recent list of the world’s wealthiest people as of November 2023.
1. Elon Musk – $229.7 billion
Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, co-founded companies such as SpaceX (a rocket manufacturer), Tesla (an electric car manufacturer), and Boring Company (a tunneling startup). Tesla provides a large amount of his income. He paid $44 billion for X (Twitter) in October 2022.
2. Bernard Arnault and family – $ 183.1 billion
The CEO of Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), the world’s largest luxury goods corporation with roughly 70 fashion and cosmetics brands, has an estimated net worth of $ 183.1 billion. In January 2021, LVMH completed its $15.8 billion acquisition of Tiffany & Co.
Bernard Arnault has five children, all of whom work in different areas of the vast LVMH. Delphine, his daughter, was named Dior’s CEO in January 2023.
3. Jeff Bezos – $ 160.8 billion
Jeff Bezos, the creator of e-commerce behemoth Amazon, stepped down as CEO in 2021 to become executive chairman. After 25 years of marriage, he divorced his wife MacKenzie in 2019 and granted her a quarter of his then-16% Amazon ownership. Jeff Bezos controls The Washington Post and Blue Origin, an aerospace company that develops rockets. He briefly traveled into space in one in July 2021.
4. Larry Ellison – $ 135.3 billion
Larry Ellison is ranked fourth. He owns 35% of Oracle and serves as its chief technology officer, chairman, and co-founder. However, he resigned as CEO of Oracle in 2014. He relocated to Hawaiian Island Lanai, which he purchased for $300 million. Not only that, but Larry Ellison purchased 3 million Tesla shares and joined the company’s board of directors in December 2018.
5. Warren Buffett – 116.5 billion
Warren Buffett, dubbed the “Oracle of Omaha,” is one of the world’s most successful investors. He is the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, which owns firms such as insurance Geico, Duracell, and Dairy Queen.
6. Bill Gates – $112.2 billion
Bill Gates’ fortune is derived from Microsoft and his investments in zero-carbon energy. He co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975 and holds less than 1% of the company’s stock as of March 2020.
For the uninitiated, he is the largest landowner in the United States. He has made investments in businesses such as Canadian National Railway and AutoNation.
7. Mark Zuckerberg – $ 109.6 Billion
Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook at Harvard in 2004 to allow students to connect names with images of classmates. He took Facebook public in May 2012, and he now owns roughly 13% of the company’s equity. In December 2015, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, promised to give up 99 percent of their Meta share during their lifetimes.
