Alling stocks, wounded unicorns and rising interest rates translated into a down year for the world’s wealthiest people. Globally, we counted 2,640 ten-figure fortunes, down from 2,668 last year. Altogether, the planet’s billionaires are now worth $12.2 trillion, a drop of $500 billion from $12.7 trillion in March 2022. Nearly half 5 richest people in the world the list is poorer than a year ago, including Elon Musk, who falls from No. 1 to No. 2 after his pricey acquisition of Twitter helped sink Tesla
TSLA

TSLA
shares. Bernard Arnault, head of luxury goods giant LVMH, takes his place as the world’s richest person, marking the first time a citizen of France leads the ranking.

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. 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. 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. On July 20, 2021, Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and Dutch student Oliver Daemen completed Blue Origin’s first successful crewed flight, reaching an altitude of more than 66 miles before landing safely.

#52 Leonardo Del Vecchio & family

Musk is CEO of electric car company Tesla, rocket firm SpaceX and social media company X, formerly known as Twitter. He owns 23% of Tesla between stock and options, but has pledged some of his stock as collateral for loans. He bought X, then known as Twitter, for $44 billion in October 2022 and owns an estimated 74% of the social media company, which is now worth less than half what he paid for it. Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX founder topped Forbes’ list for the first time ever with a net worth of $219 billion. More than half of the top 10 billionaires earned their fortunes in the technology sector.

Over the years Oracle has made a series of large acquisitions, buying Sun Microsystems in 2010. Software tycoon Larry Ellison of Oracle has a smaller fortune as well. Though he’s held onto his rank at No. 4 richest, a 3% decline in Oracle shares during October shaved $5 billion from Ellison’s fortune. Twenty-three billionaires have died since mid March 2020, including Switzerland’s Benjamin de Rothschild, heir to a storied banking fortune; Brazilian banking tycoon Joseph Safra and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. On March 27, after Forbes had finalized this year’s ranking, Czech billionaire Petr Kellner died in a helicopter crash in Alaska. His $17.5 billion fortune, which will likely pass to his wife and children, is included in our numbers.

Forbes World’s Billionaires List 2023: The Top 200

Their grandfather, Pierre Wertheimer, made a deal with Gabrielle «Coco» Chanel in 1924 regarding the business’ now iconic perfumes, and a new corporate entity, Parfums Chanel, was born. Wertheimer would make the famous No. 5 scent in his factory in exchange for a percentage of the company. One of Germany’s wealthiest families, the https://www.bookstime.com/articles/accounting-florida Reimanns, are behind the conglomerate JAB Holding Company, which now owns brands like Krispy Kreme, Panera, and Peet’s Coffee. «I have no doubt that my termination was based on fundamental differences in business between my thinking and Disney leadership, because I care about return on investment,» Perlmutter said at the time.

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. Buffett created the Giving Pledge with Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates in 2010, asking billionaires to commit to give away at least half their fortune to charitable groups. So far he’s donated $51.5 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Gates Foundation and his kids’ foundations.

#35 Beate Heister & Karl Albrecht Jr. & family

Itwas a down year for many of the planet’s 2,640 billionaires–including those at the very top of the top. The 25 richest people in the world are worth a collective $2.1 trillion, according to Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list, released Tuesday–down a combined $200 billion from $2.3 trillion in 2022. With so much of their wealth in publicly traded stocks, the net worth of the richest fluctuates along with the market valuations of the companies they own. Below are the 10 wealthiest people on the planet, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. If you’re wondering how the richest people in the world built their fortune, you’ve come to the right place. Here are five of the world’s wealthiest and how they went from an average joe to a multi-billionaire.

• Buffett expanded the company’s holdings to insurance and other investments in 1967.
• Meet Philip Anschutz, who has been dubbed «America’s most reclusive billionaire.» His net worth sits at $10.7 billion, according to Forbes.
• Widely known as the Oracle of Omaha, Buffett is a buy-and-hold investor who built his fortune by acquiring undervalued companies.
• Musk was also the world’s richest person for most of 2022—until December 2022, when a drop in Tesla’s share price pushed down the value of his fortune.
• Forbes puts the number of billionaires in the world at 2,640 in 2023.

He now serves as a board member of Google’s parent Alphabet and continues to be a controlling shareholder. The Tesla co-founder, who this year changed his title from CEO to «Technoking of Tesla» in a March regulatory filing, has enjoyed a massive wealth increase thanks to the rapid growth of his electric automaker. Tesla shares are up about 60% this year, and the company hit a $1 trillion market cap for the first time in October.