Elon Musk tops super-billionaire list as global wealth shifts
The general director of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, with a fortune valued at £319 billion, has been recognised as the wealthiest person in the world in the "Wall Street Journal" ranking. He has significantly surpassed Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who took second place with a fortune of £201 billion.
The American newspaper published for the first time on Tuesday a list of 24 super-billionaires, which includes all individuals globally whose net worth exceeds £38 billion. The data comes from analyses by Altrata, a company that tracks global wealth.
According to the WSJ, super-billionaires hold over 16% of the total wealth of billionaires worldwide, a significant increase from just 4% in 2014. The fortunes of the wealthiest 24 people reached £2.5 trillion, which is comparable to the nominal GDP of France. Within this group, 16 individuals have achieved centibillionaire status, each possessing at least £76 billion.
As the newspaper reported, Musk's wealth is more than two million times greater than that of an average American family. Last week, Bloomberg estimated that the value of his enterprises increased by £466 billion following Donald Trump's victory in the November 2024 presidential elections.
This amount includes anticipated investments, which are financial transactions that have not yet been realised but are planned. Musk currently serves as Trump's advisor.
Top five super-rich
Behind Jeff Bezos, who ranked second on the WSJ list, is Bernard Arnault, the owner of the luxury giant Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, with a fortune of £182 billion. The top five include Oracle's chairman Larry Ellison (£181 billion) and entrepreneur and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (£169 billion).
The ranking also features three women: Alice Walton, heir to the Walmart fortune (£85 billion), Julia Koch, who inherited wealth from her late husband, founder of the American corporation Koch Inc. (£50 billion), and Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, granddaughter of the L'Oréal founder (£48 billion).
The list concludes with the wealthiest Chinese individual, Zhong Shanshan, founder and chairman of the beverage company Nongfu Spring (£45 billion), and Prajogo Pangestu, an Indonesian entrepreneur of Barito Pacific Timber (£43 billion).
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