MILANO – The pandemic year spawned a new billionaire every 17 hours. There have never been so many new entries in the traditional ranking of Forbes just updated by the American magazine, in an edition that marks a string of records: flying share prices, record-breaking landings on the stock market have been able to do more than a contraction of the economies without equal in peacetime. In the list of the richest people in the world there are now 2,755 names, with 493 new names of billion dollar people. Overall, the sum of their assets is 13.1 trillion dollars: 8 trillion more than the total of the 2020 ranking.
The top five see Jeff Bezos confirm itself at the top for the fourth consecutive year with assets of 177 billion, up by 64 billion dollars. Behind him, however, the new press: he has the face of Elon Musk, which jumped from number 31 to the place of honor with a fortune of 151 billion, the result of an increase of over 126. On the other hand, the shares of his Tesla have combined a gain of over seven hundred percentage points in the year of Covid. Behind them, Bernard Arnault of LVMH remains at number three on the chart followed by Bill Gates at number four. Closes the top five Mark Zuckerberg thus marking another historical moment: in more than twenty years it is the first time that Warren Buffett sits out of the magnificent five.
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As Forbes points out, 210 of the new billionaires are from China or Hong Kong, 98 from the United States. The highest ranking newcomer, with $ 38.2 billion, is Miriam Adelson, of Nevada, who inherited her husband’s casino empire, Sheldon Adelson, who died in January. Other noteworthy new entries are those of the film and television program producer Tyler Perry, co-founder of the dating app Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Herd (the youngest billionaire self-made to the world), and the European Guillaume Pousaz, founder of the payment company Checkout.com. Another 250 people who had left the list in the past have reappeared.
| Rank | Name | Equity ($ bn) | Source of wealth | Residenza |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jeff Bezos | 177 | Amazon | Seattle |
| 2 | Elon Musk | 151 | Tesla, SpaceX | Austin, Texas |
| 3 | Bernard Arnault | 150 | Luxury | Paris |
| 4 | Bill Gates | 124 | Microsoft | Medina, Washington |
| 5 | Mark Zuckerberg | 97 | Palo Alto, California | |
| 6 | Warren Buffett | 96 | Berkshire Hathaway | Omaha, Nebraska |
| 7 | Larry Ellison | 93 | Software | Lanai, Hawaii |
| 8 | Larry Page | 91,5 | Palo Alto, California | |
| 9 | Sergey Brin | 89 | Los Altos, California | |
| 10 | Mukesh Ambani | 84,5 | Various | Mumbai, India |
Among the Scrooge’s of this edition, there is another record with 1,975 “self-made billionaires”, that is to say that they have built their fortune on their own. There are 328 women, up from 241 in 2020 (Kim Kardashian West officially enters the ranking). Asia-Pacific has the largest number of billionaires, 1,149, followed by the US with 724 and Europe with 628.
The Italian detail of the ranking sees Leonardo Del Vecchio in 62nd place with over 25 billion in assets, then Massimiliana Landini Aleotti, Giorgio Armani, Silvio Berlusconi, Giuseppe De ‘Longhi, Gustavo Denegri, Patrizio Bertelli and so on. Giovanni Ferrero (with 35.1 billion) becomes the richest in Belgium where he has resided and for the same change (to Switzerland) the Perfetti candy brothers also dropped out of the ranking. Stefano Pessina (Walgreens Boots Alliance pharmacies) instead moved his residence to Monte Carlo, becoming the third richest. Overall, the billionaires surveyed in Italy are 46 for approximately 150 billion aggregate.
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