With Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg on the podium of the billionaires who earned the most, and the entry of the British James Dyson and Jim Ratcliffe (the new shareholder of Manchester United) in the top 10, completes the list of the richest businessmen in the world, who became majority, even richer in 2023.
Even the circle of russian oligarchs has managed to continue growing their fortunes, at least on paper, ignoring the impact of the economic sanctions imposed on them in multiple jurisdictions in response to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Of the 50 richest people in the world, 12 lost money in 2023, while the rest saw their fortunes grow. Of the richest 500, 77% saw their bank accounts grow according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Musk tops the table with an estimated net worth of $235 billion.
Despite reports that its stake in X (formerly Twitter) plummeted by more than half after it paid $44 billion for it in 2022, the electric car company Tesla was a big winner. The company’s shares doubled in value this year, with a market value of almost $816 billion: Musk expanded his wealth by almost $98 billion.
His rival was located behind Mark Zuckerberg, with whom he was due to fight in a cage earlier this year after a social media challenge that went cold. The Facebook founder’s fortune jumped 184%, from $45 billion to $128 billion, while the value of the social network’s parent company, Meta, soared 172% in 2023.
After a forgettable 2022, which saw Meta’s value plummet due to shareholder concerns that too much was being spent on the so-called metaversestocks recovered almost all of their losses.
The podium completes it Prajogo Pangestuowner of an Indonesian conglomerate, who enjoyed a roughly sevenfold increase in his wealth, thanks to a big bet on geothermal energy, catapulting him into the world’s top 50 billionaires with a total of $31.5 billion.
The French Bernard Arnault, with a fortune of $179 billion, saw its assets grow by $17.2 billion thanks to the performance of its luxury group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. And the businesswoman and heiress of the L’Oréal beauty empire, Françoise Bettencourt Meyersranks 12th among billionaires, with an increase of $316 million that brought his net worth to $99.1 billion.
Among the Russian magnates, nickel stood out Vladimir Potanin, with an increase of almost 2,000 million dollars to US$ 30,600 million; and also the telecommunications czar Alisher Usmanov: it grew by 1.88 billion dollars, to US$ 20.3 billion.
Ratcliffethe Monaco-based petrochemical magnate, increased his wealth by $8.55 billion to $19.4 billion: he recently invested £1 billion in Manchester United, buying 25% of the club in a deal that was completed this week .
by RN
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