The richest in the world have become $1,500 billion richer this year with two days to go. This is evident from the report published on Friday Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the 500 richest people in 2023. In 2022, they will collectively lose around 1.4 trillion dollars.
Tech billionaires in particular made significant progress. They saw their assets grow by almost 50 percent, thanks to, among other things, the increasing interest in artificial intelligence. No one did better than Elon Musk, who regained the title of richest person in the world from French luxury magnate Bernard Arnault of LVMH, named after fashion brand Louis Vuitton and champagne company Moët Hennessy.
Musk added another $95.4 billion to his immense fortune this year, mainly due to the success of car company Tesla and space company SpaceX. In 2022 he would have had to accept a loss of 138 billion. He is now worth $50 billion more than Arnault, according to Bloomberg. The Frenchman saw global demand for luxury goods from his LVMH group decline this year.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos became more than 70 billion richer this year. His net worth is about the same as Arnault and they are narrowly competing for the spot behind Musk. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will no longer achieve that, even though he will receive more than 80 billion in 2023.
Adani loser
The biggest loser this year was Indian billionaire Gautam Adani. He lost $21 billion in one day on January 27 after a critical report from investor Hindenburg Research caused the value of his Adani Group to plummet. For the year as a whole, he lost $37.3 billion.
Bloomberg will later release a definitive ranking of the very richest.
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