To acquire the ‘wealthiest person on earth’ title or enter the ‘World’s Richest Men’ list demands more than just a homogeneous portfolio. Billionaires are stinking rich individuals, with assets ranging from cash and cash equivalents, real estate, as well as business and personal properties.
You’re never going to amass such wealth being a white collar worker. Even if you work a hundred jobs, you might wither off before you enjoy said wealth. These rich as Croesus entities sink their money in the unpredictable oceans of stocks, bonds, and other types of stable investments. They take impossibly high and calculated risks.
Who Publishes The World’s Richest Men List?
The Real-Time Billionaires List otherwise known as World’s Billionaires List is the ranking of the world’s wealthiest billionaires based on their recorded net worth. It is curated and published annually every March by American business magazine Forbes. The inaugural edition of the list was released in March 1987.
The net total worth of each person on the list is approximated and specified in US dollars. This is based on their documented assets and accounting for debt and other determinants. These lists only show the top 10 wealthiest billionaires for each year. Although, excluded from these lists are Royalties and Dictators who amass wealth from their status.
It’s Not Just Men On The Billionaires List
To most people, the richest individuals alive are men and contrary to this otherwise spurious impression, women are snugly nestling at the top of Forbes’ elite ladder. There were 328 women on the world’s billionaires list as of 17 March 2021 and 327 as at 2022. Below are some of the top three richest women in the world.
Françoise Bettencourt Meyers
The billionaire heiress, Françoise is the richest woman in the world, with an estimated net worth of $74.6B as of August 2022. Born and raised catholic, she’s the granddaughter of L’Oréal founder, Eugène Schueller. Her mother Liliane Bettencourt died in 2017 and Françoise inherited her wealth despite all the scandals, tragedies and controversies. The French businesswoman is married to Jean-Pierre Meyers, the grandson of a rabbi murdered at Auschwitz and they have two kids. Françoise is also a writer, philantrophist, pianist and has written various commentaries on the bible.
Alice Walton
Second on the list is Alice Walton. An American heiress and the only daughter of Walmart founder and magnate, Sam Walton. She’s ranking 19th on the Forbes Real Time list with a whooping net worth of $61.7B as of August 2022, making her the 20th-richest person, and the second richest woman in the world. The 72 year old billionaire’s interest in art led her to develop the Crystal Bridges Museum Of American Art. In 2019, she lost the top spot on the list to L’Oréal heiress, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers. Also, in September 2016, she owned over US$11 billion in Walmart shares and Walton has donated millions of her shares to arts and other charitable causes.
Julia Koch
Julia Margaret Flesher Koch is the third richest woman in the world. She inherited 42% stake in Koch industries when her husband David Koch died in August 2019 at age 79. Julia Koch’s family came from a farming background in Iowa. She worked her way up from her parent’s clothing store, as a model, fashion designer’s assistant to becoming one of the wealthiest women on earth. As at August 2022, her net worth is $57.9B and she ranks 21 on forbes real time billionaires list.
Here are the list of the world’s richest men according to Forbes real time billionaires list 2022
Profile Of The World’s Richest Men 2022
Elon Musk
Business mogul Elon Musk is the richest man in the world, with a staggering net worth of $272B as of August 2022. The industrialist surpassed Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who was in the number one position in 2021. He co-founded six companies including electric car maker Tesla, rocket producer SpaceX and tunnelling startup Boring Company. SpaceX, founded in 2002, is worth $127 billion while the Boring Company, which aims to defeat traffic, is worth $5.675 billion. Twitter’s board agreed to sell the company to Musk for $44 billion in April 2022, after he disclosed a 9.1% stake and threatened a hostile takeover.
Bernard Arnault family
Next on the world’s richest men list is Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault with a net worth of $171.4B. The French business magnate, investor, and art collector is the co-founder and CEO of LVMH, Louis Vuitton and Sephora. Recently, he acquired Tifanny & Co for $15.8 billion and these are just a few of his multitudinous investments.
Jeff Bezzos
Right out of his garage, business tycoon Jeffrey Preston Bezos built his empire. He is the founder, executive chairman and former president and CEO of Amazon which he almost named “Cadabra”, thankfully he didn’t. He is the third on the world’s richest men list.
Jeff Bezos equally has a net worth of $167.1B as of august 2022,. Meanwhile in August 2020, Bezos became the first person in contemporary history to accumulate a fortune of over $200 billion. Also in 2018, he was the wealthiest person in the world in 2018 when his net worth doubled, jumping from $81.5 billion in October 2017 to $160 billion the following October, thanks to Amazon’s soaring stock price. The Amazon bigwig stepped down in 2021 from his position as CEO to become Executive Chairman of the Amazon Board. His rationale for this action was to focus Day 1 Fund, Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, among his other interests.
Gautam Adani & family
The 4th richest man in the world is Indian billionaire industrialist Gautam Shantilal Adani worth around $135.9B. He is the richest man in India and all of Asia. Gautam Adani is the CEO of Adani Group which deals on ports development, real estate as well as power generation and transmission. The infrastructure tycoon has plans of becoming the world’s largest producer of green energy and has also said he will invest up to $70 billion on renewable energy projects.
Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III is an American business mogul, software developer, investor, author, philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft. He wrote his first software program at 13 and when he was 19, started Microsoft with his now late childhood friend Paul Allen. From 1995 to 2017, he held the Forbes title of the richest person in the world every year. In 2017, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos outranked Gates to become the wealthiest in 2017. He later resigned as the Chairman of Microsoft to focus on his philanthropic endeavours on climate change, global health, and education. He was married to Melinda gates until the duo parted in 2021 amid a myriad of unhealthy reasons.
Larry Ellison
Lawrence Joseph Ellison is the co-founder, chief technology officer and former CEO of American colossal software company, Oracle. The college dropout started out by building databases for the CIA and also expanded to purchasing and owning stakes in NetSuite, Tesla, Astex Pharmaceuticals among others. After 37 years reins on the technology company, Ellison assumed the position of CTO and executive chairman. His current net worth is $109.9B and he’s the 6th world’s richest men list. In addition, Ellison has donated several million dollars to charitable causes. He has been married and divorced four times with four kids but is currently in a relationship.
Warren Buffet
We cannot curate a list of successful people in the world without including the eminent Warren Edward Buffett. He is an investor and the current CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company for a multitude of businesses in insurance, freight retail transportation, energy generation and distribution, manufacturing etc. Warren is currently the seventh on the world’s richest men list with a net worth of $106.6B. He is popularly known as the ‘Oracle of Omaha’ and aims to donate 99% of his wealth to philanthropic causes.
Larry Page
American computer scientist Lawrence Edward Page is the eight richest man in the world. He is worth over $103.5B . The alpha geek co-founded Google with Sergey Brin and was the CEO from 1997 until 2001. Page subsequently moved to google’s parent company Alphabet and was the CEO before stepping down in 2019. Page has invested in Tesla and several other investments including renewable energy technology.
Sergey Brin
Ninth on the list is Sergey Mikhailovich Brin. An American business tycoon, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur. He was born to Russian Jewish parents and his father is a retired mathematics professor at the University of Maryland. Sergey co-founded Google with Larry Page in 1998 after the two met at Stanford University while studying for advanced degrees in computer science. In 2015 he became the CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company and later gave up his role as president in 2019 but still remains a shareholder and board member. Sergey has been married and divorced twice with three children. His estimated net worth as at August is $100.4B.
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is our tenth wealthiest man in the world with a current net worth of $96.2B. He is the founder and chairman of Reliance Industries, a business his later father who was a textile trader back in the 70s started. After obtaining a degree in Chemical Engineering, he enrolled for an MBA at Standford University but withdrew in 1980 to help his father start Reliance. Mukesh launched reliance’s Jio, a 4G phone and broadband service in 2016 and today, investors in Jio include Google and Facebook.
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