TOP 10 MOST RICHEST BILLIONAIRES IN THE WORLD

Many billionaires hold much of their net worth in the stock of the company they founded. As that stock price moves, their fortune moves along with it. On March 1, 2023, Indian industrialist Mukesh Ambani ranked as the 8th richest in the world, per Forbes. But stocks owned by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and French cosmetics heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers (No. 9 and 10 last month) rose in value, lifting both of their fortunes above Ambani’s. Mike Bloomberg also entered the top ten, ranked No. 7 on April 1, while Ambani fell to No. 13. For some near the top of Forbes’ Real Time list of billionaires, it’s a monthly shuffle.

As of March 2021, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was the fifth richest person in the world, worth $97 billion. Since then, Facebook’s (rebranded as Meta Platforms) stock took a dive Zuckerberg fell out of the top 10 richest. Even though Meta stock has rebounded, rising nearly 70% since the beginning of 2023, Zuckerberg’s still not back in the top 10. As of April 1, 2023 he ranks No. 15, worth $75.7 billion—up from $63 billion a month ago.

India’s Gautam Adani overtook Mukesh Ambani to become the richest person in Asia in February 2022. His fortune soared by $55 billion last year, and in late January he was the third richest person in the world, worth $127 billion.




Who are the top 10 richest people in the world?*


1. Bernard Arnault

2. Elon Musk

3. Jeff Bezos

4. Larry Ellison

5. Bill Gates

6. Warren Buffett

7. Mike Bloomberg

8. Carlos Slim Helu

9. Steve Ballmer

10. Francoise Bettencourt Meyers


*As of March 1, 2023 at 8:30 a.m. ET



1. Bernard Arnault

Net worth: $225.9 B

Source: LVMH/ luxury goods

Age: 74

Residence: Paris

Citizenship: France

Bernard Arnault is CEO and chairman of LVMH, the largest luxury goods company in the world with some 70 fashion and cosmetics brands. Among its most notable: Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Moet & Chandon and Sephora. In January 2021, LVMH acquired jeweler Tiffany & Co. for $15.8 billion.

Arnault’s father made millions in the construction business; to get his start, Arnault used $15 million of that fortune to buy Christian Dior.

All five of Arnault’s children work in parts of the LVMH empire. In January 2023, Arnault appointed his daughter Delphine to run Dior, the second largest brand in the group.




2. Elon Musk

Net worth: $202.4 B

Source: Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter

Age: 51

Residence: Austin, Texas

Citizenship: U.S.

Musk is CEO of electric car company Tesla, rocket firm SpaceX and social media company Twitter. He owns 23% of Tesla between stock and options, but has pledged more than half of his stock as collateral for loans. The car company accounts for about two-thirds of his fortune. He bought 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. His fortune has risen by nearly $6 billion in the month through April 1, 2023.

Originally from South Africa, Musk moved to Canada before his 18th birthday, worked a variety of jobs, enrolled at Queen’s University in Ontario and then transferred to University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics.

In 2000, he merged an online bank he cofounded, X.com with a similar outfit cofounded by Peter Thiel to form PayPal, which eBay bought in 2002 for $1.4 billion. He founded SpaceX in 2002 in El Segundo, near Los Angeles. In 2004 he joined Tesla as an investor and chairman, a year after it was founded; he was later granted the cofounder title. Musk, who became CEO of Tesla in 2008, took the company public in 2010. Its market capitalization soared during 2020 and 2021. In September 2021, Musk became the world’s richest person. In November 2021, his fortune peaked at a whopping $320 billion.

Musk remained the world’s richest person until December 2022, when the drop in Tesla’s share price pushed down the value of his fortune. Tesla shares have fallen from their peak in November 2021, but have risen more than 90% from the beginning of 2023 through March 31, 2023.



MICHAEL PRINCE FOR FORBES

3. Jeff Bezos

Net worth: $126.4 B

Source: Amazon

Age: 59

Residence: Medina, Washington

Citizenship: U.S.

Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO of e-commerce giant Amazon in July 2021 but remains chairman; that same month he went to space on a rocket built by private rocket company Blue Origin, which he founded and has funded with billions of dollars. Between March 1 and April 1, 2023 his fortune rose by $9 billion as Amazon shares jumped 12%.

Bezos founded online retailer Amazon.com in his garage in Seattle in 1994, after he left a job in New York at hedge fund D.E. Shaw. Amazon began as an online bookseller at a time when few people bought goods online. The company grew to dominate cloud storage and moved into movie and series production to feed Amazon Prime Video.

Bezos overtook Bill Gates to become the richest person in the world in July 2017. He and Gates traded the number one and number two richest spots off and on. Bezos was the world’s richest person on Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires from 2018 through 2021; he dropped to second richest on the 2022 billionaires list. He dropped to fourth richest but moved back to No. 3 on January 25, 2023 as the fortune of India’s Gautam Adani (formerly No. 3 richest) fell.

In 2019, Bezos and his wife MacKenzie divorced; as part of the settlement, she got 4% of Amazon’s shares and he kept 12%. He has since sold more of his stake and owns around 10% of the company. Since Amazon went public in 1997, Forbescalculates that he has sold more than $27 billion worth of his stock. Through his Bezos Expeditions he has invested in an array of companies, including Airbnb and software firm Workday.




JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES

4. Larry Ellison

Net worth: $118.3 B

Source: Oracle

Age: 78

Residence: Lanai, Hawaii

Citizenship: U.S.

Larry Ellison cofounded software firm Oracle in 1977 and ran it as CEO until 2014; he now serves as chairman and Chief Technology Officer of the company. Over the years Oracle has made a series of large acquisitions, buying Sun Microsystems in 2010.

In 2012, Ellison bought the Hawaiian island of Lanai for $300 million. He moved from California to Lanai in 2020.

Ellison invested in Tesla and served on the board of the car company from 2018 through August 2022. His fortune increased by $6 billion between March 1 and April 1, 2023, powered by a 7.5% rise in Oracle’s share price.



5. Bill Gates

Net worth: $110.3 B

Source: Microsoft, investments

Age: 67

Residence: Medina, Washington

Citizenship: U.S.

As a teenager, Gates became passionate about computer programming. He dropped out of Harvard to cofound software firm Microsoft with his high school friend Paul Allen in 1975, creating one of the first software programs available for the nascent personal computer industry. He was CEO of the company for 25 years and remained chairman until 2014. He eventually stepped off the board in 2020 but told Forbes in early 2023 that he still spends about 10% of his time consulting with teams at Microsoft. These days he has investments in dozens of companies including waste removal firm Republic Services and agricultural equipment maker Deere & Co., and is one of the largest owners of farmland in the U.S.

Forbes first listed Gates as a billionaire in 1987; he was the richest person in the world from 1995 through 2017 (except in 2008 and from 2010 through 2013). Largely due to the $59 billion he has donated to the Gates Foundation, including a $20 billion gift in July 2022, he was overtaken as the world’s richest person in 2018 by Jeff Bezos. He and Melinda French Gates divorced in 2021; she received at least $6 billion in stock as part of the divorce settlement. Gates’ fortune increased by about $5 billion from March 1 to April 1, 2023, moving him one spot ahead of his friend Warren Buffett in the top 1o.



TIMOTHY ARCHIBALD FOR FORBES

6. Warren Buffett

Net worth: $106.8 B

Source: Berkshire Hathaway

Age: 92

Residence: Omaha, Nebraska

Citizenship: U.S.

Known as the "Oracle of Omaha," Warren Buffett is one of the most successful investors of all time. He runs investing conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, which owns dozens of companies, including insurer Geico, battery maker Duracell and restaurant chain Dairy Queen. The son of a U.S. congressman, he first bought stock at age 11 and first filed taxes at age 13.

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. Buffett has said he would donate 99% of his fortune. So far he’s donated $51.5 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Gates Foundation and his kids’ foundations. That makes him the most generous billionaire on the planet. His fortune rose by $400 million in the month through April 1, 2023.




GETTY IMAGES

7. Michael Bloomberg

Net worth: $94.5 billion

Source: Bloomberg LP

Age: 81

Residence: New York City

Citizenship: U.S.

Michael Bloomberg founded financial information and news company Bloomberg LP in 1981 after being fired by investment bank Salomon Brothers. He put the seed funding in and now owns 88% of the business, which has revenues north of $12 billion.

He took a break from running his business after being elected as mayor of New York City, a position he held from 2002 through 2013.

Bloomberg is an outspoken advocate of gun control and has donated $14.4 billion to a variety of philanthropic causes, including climate change, education and healthcare.



JASON DECROW/AP

8. Carlos Slim Helu

Net worth: $93.4 B

Source: telecom, investments

Age: 83

Residence: Mexico City

Citizenship: Mexico

Carlos Slim Helu and his family control América Móvil, Latin America's biggest mobile telecom firm, with operations in at least 15 countries. Slim and some foreign telecom partners acquired Telmex, the government-owned phone company, in 1990. Telmex became a part of América Móvil.

He also owns stakes in Mexican construction, consumer goods, mining and real estate companies. He used to own 17% of the New York Times, but sold the stake in 2021.

Slim overtook Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the world’s richest person from 2010 to 2013. Before going into business, Slim taught algebra at UNAM, a university in Mexico City.



MARK LENNIHAN/AP

9. Steve Ballmer

Net worth: $90.8 billion

Source: Microsoft, investments

Age: 66

Residence: Hunts Point, Washington

Citizenship: U.S.

Ballmer, a classmate of Bill Gates at Harvard University, ran Microsoft as its CEO from 2000 to 2014. He joined Microsoft as employee number 30 in 1980 after dropping out of the MBA program at Stanford University.

The year that Ballmer retired from Microsoft, he purchased the Los Angeles Clippers team for $2 billion—a record high for an NBA team at the time. Forbes now values the team at $3.9 billion.




FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

10. Francoise Bettencourt Meyers

Net worth: $89.4 billion

Source: L’Oreal

Age: 69

Residence: Paris, France

Citizenship: France

Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, granddaughter of the founder of cosmetics giant L’Oreal, is the richest woman in the world. Bettencourt Meyers and her family own around 33% of L’Oreal stock. She has served on L’Oreal’s board since 1997 and is chairwoman of the family holding company.

Bettencourt Meyers inherited her fortune in 2017 after the death of her mother, Liliane Bettencourt. She serves as president of her family’s philanthropic foundation, which encourages progress in science and the arts.