A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. It is a sub-category of the concept of the ultra high-net-worth individual. The American business magazine Forbes produces a global list of known U.S. dollar billionaires every year and updates an internet version of this list in real time. [1] The American oil magnate John D. Rockefeller became the world's first confirmed U.S. dollar billionaire in 1916. [2]
As of 2018, [update] there are over 2,200 U.S. dollar billionaires worldwide, with a combined wealth of over US$9.1 trillion, [3] up from US$7.67 trillion in 2017. [4] [5] According to a 2017 Oxfam report, the top eight richest billionaires own as much combined wealth as the "bottom half of the human race". [6] [7] As of 2021, eight people have reached the status of USD centibillionaires, meaning that each has had a net worth of at least $100 billion. [8]
According to the UBS/PwC Billionaires Report 2019 report released in November 2019, there are currently 2,101 U.S. dollar billionaires worldwide, from 66 countries, with a combined net worth of $8.5 trillion. [9] [10] Also according to the report, billionaires have a substantial positive impact on the sustainability and success of companies controlled by them. Billionaire-controlled companies listed on the equity market returned 17.8 percent, compared with the 9.1 percent of the MSCI AC World Index. According to the authors of the report, this Billionaire Effect is connected with smart risk-taking and willingness to plan and invest for the long term.
The majority of billionaires are male, as fewer than 11% (197 of 1,826) on the 2015 list were female billionaires. [11] The United States has the largest number of billionaires of any country, with 536 as of 2015 [update] , [11] while China, India and Russia are home to 213, 90 and 88 billionaires, respectively. [12] [13] As of 2015 [update] , only 46 billionaires were under the age of 40, [11] while the list of American-only billionaires, as of 2010, had an average age of 66. [14]
Different authorities use different methodologies to determine net worth and to rank them, and not all information about personal finances is publicly available. In 2019, Forbes counted a record 607 billionaires in the U.S.. [15] Over the course of the 2020s, depending on the source and the year, the world's richest person has been reckoned to be Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault and family, or Elon Musk.
In 2019, 19 people became billionaires. Four were a result of death or divorce, including Julia Koch, and Jeff Bezos's former wife MacKenzie Scott. [16] From 2014 to 2019, the number of female billionaires grew by 46%. That is more than the number of male billionaires in the same period (39%). As of 2019 there were 233 female billionaires in the world, compared to 160 in 2013. [9]
Billionaires come from a very wide number of backgrounds. A review of the education and work histories of the top 400 billionaires shows little correlation between education and success. Nearly 30% of billionaires do not have a college degree, greatly exceeding any other educational background. The most common field of university education was finance and economics, which only contributed to a combined 15.5% of billionaire educations. [17] [18] There is little correlation between any university and becoming a billionaire. The top 10 universities produced just 99 of the top 400 billionaires combined, significantly less than the total number of billionaires who were not college educated. Military service produced 21 billionaires, more than any single university. [18]
Very few college-educated billionaires pursued business interests in their field of study, with the exception of computer science majors. All twelve of the computer science major billionaires worked in computer science, while only half of engineers worked in engineering, and less than a quarter of finance and economics majors ever worked in finance or economics. The most common field for billionaires to enter was sales and military service. [18]
According to a 2016 Oxfam report, the wealth of the poorest 95% dropped by 38% between 2010 and 2015, due to an increase in the global population of 400 million. [19] In the same period, the wealth of the richest 62 people between the World's Billionaires increased by $500bn (£350bn) to $1.76tn. More recently, in 2017 an Oxfam report noted that just eight billionaires have as much net worth as "half the human race". [6] [7] However, the Oxfam report has been criticized for considering debt as negative wealth, which leads to wealthy people with large amounts of debt to be considered poor or not wealthy. [20]
These aggregated statistics for billionaires include the total number of known billionaires and the net worth of the world's wealthiest individual for each year since 2008. Data for each year is from the annual Forbes list of billionaires, with currency figures given in U.S. dollars. Data since 2018 also includes the Wealth-X billionaire census which typically finds higher numbers than Forbes.
Year | Total number of billionaires | Combined wealth of known billionaires | Number of billionaires | World's wealthiest individual | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
U.S. | Chinese | Indian | German | Russian | Name | Net worth | |||
2021 [21] | 2755 | 724 | 626 | 140 | 136 | 117 | Elon Musk | $320 billion [22] | |
2020 [23] [24] | 2,095 | $10.2 trillion | 614 | 389 | 102 | 99 | Jeff Bezos | $188 billion | |
2019 [25] [26] | 2,153–2,604 | $8.6–8.7 trillion | 609–705 | 285–324 | 82–106 | 98–102 | Jeff Bezos | $131 billion | |
2018 [4] [3] | 2,208–2,754 | $9.1–9.2 trillion | 585–680 | 338–372 | 117–119 | 96–111 | Jeff Bezos | $133 billion | |
2017 [5] | 2,043 | $7.71 trillion | 565 | 319 | 101 | 106 | Jeff Bezos | $99.6 billion | |
2016 | 1,810 | $6.48 trillion | 540 | 251 | 90 | 75 | Bill Gates | $75 billion | |
2015 [12] | 1,826 | $7.05 trillion | 536 | 213 | 88 | 88 | Bill Gates | $79.2 billion | |
2014 [27] | 1,645 | $6.4 trillion | 492 | 152 | 56 [28] | 111 | Bill Gates | $78 billion | |
2013 [29] | 1,426 | $5.4 trillion | 442 | 122 | – | 110 | Carlos Slim | $73 billion | |
2012 [30] | 1,226 | $4.6 trillion | 425 | 95 | – | 96 | Carlos Slim | $73 billion | |
2011 [31] | 1,210 | $4.5 trillion | 413 | 115 | – | 101 | Carlos Slim | $74 billion | |
2010 [32] | 1,011 | $3.6 trillion | 404 | 89 | – | 62 | Carlos Slim | $53.5 billion | |
2009 [33] | 793 | $2.4 trillion | 359 | 28 | – | 32 | Bill Gates | $40 billion | |
2008 [34] | 1,125 | $4.4 trillion | 470 | – | – | 87 | Warren Buffett | $62 billion |
Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American business magnate best known as the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. He is the second wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of US$ 211 billion as of July 16, 2024, according to Forbes. He was the wealthiest person from 2017 to 2021, according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes.
James Douglas Packer is an Australian billionaire businessman and investor. Packer is the son of Kerry Packer, a media mogul, and his wife, Roslyn Packer. He is the grandson of Sir Frank Packer. He inherited control of the family company, Consolidated Press Holdings Limited, as well as investments in Crown Resorts and other companies. He is the former executive chairman of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL) and Consolidated Media Holdings, which predominantly owned media interests across a range of platforms, and a former executive chairman of Crown Resorts.
A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. Depending on the currency, a certain level of prestige is associated with being a millionaire. Many national currencies have, or have had at various times, a low unit value, in many cases due to past inflation. It is much easier and less significant to be a millionaire in those currencies, thus a millionaire in Hong Kong or Taiwan, for example, may be merely averagely wealthy, or perhaps less wealthy than average. A millionaire in Zimbabwe in 2007 could have been extremely poor. Because of this, the term 'millionaire' generally refers to those whose assets total at least one million units of a high-value currency, such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling.
The distribution of wealth is a comparison of the wealth of various members or groups in a society. It shows one aspect of economic inequality or economic heterogeneity.
High-net-worth individual (HNWI) is a technical term used in the financial services industry for people who maintain liquid assets at or above a certain threshold. Typically, they are defined as holding financial assets valued over US$1 million. A secondary level, a very-high-net-worth individual (VHNWI), refers to someone with a net worth of at least US$5 million. The terminal level, an ultra-high-net-worthindividual (UHNWI), holds US$30 million in investible assets. Individuals with a net worth of over US$1 billion are considered to occupy a special bracket of the UHNWI. These thresholds are broadly used in studies of wealth inequality, government regulation, investment suitability requirements, marketing, financing standards, and general corporate strategy.
Black billionaires are individuals who are of predominantly African ancestry with a net worth of at least US$1 billion.
Mohammed "Mo" Gulamabbas Dewji is a Tanzanian billionaire businessman and former politician. He is the owner of MeTL Group, a Tanzanian conglomerate founded by his grandmother, developed by his father in the 1970s. Dewji served as Member of the Tanzanian Parliament for Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) from 2005 to 2015 for his home town of Singida. As of October 2022, Dewji has an estimated net worth of US$1.5 billion, Africa's 17th richest person and youngest billionaire. Dewji was the first Tanzanian on the cover of Forbes magazine, in 2013.
The Forbes list of Australia's 50 richest people is a list of Australia's fifty wealthiest individuals and families, ranked by personal net worth published annually by Forbes Asia magazine. The list provides a short summary on some of the known business activities of the individuals and families, together with commentary on how their ranking has changed from the previous year, if listed. The list is published annually in January in an online format and updated daily, also online.
The World's Billionaires is an annual ranking of people who are billionaires, i.e., they are considered to have a net worth of US$1 billion or more, by the American business magazine Forbes. The list was first published in March 1987. The total net worth of each individual on the list is estimated and is cited in United States dollars, based on their documented assets and accounting for debt and other factors. Royalty and dictators whose wealth comes from their positions are excluded from these lists. This ranking is an index of the wealthiest documented individuals, excluding any ranking of those with wealth that is not able to be completely ascertained.
David Siang Hai Teoh is an Australian businessman. Until March 26, 2021, he was the executive chairman of TPG, a company he founded with his Taiwanese wife Vicky in 1992 after emigrating from Malaysia in 1986. He is also the founder and executive chairman of Tuas Limited, who owns Simba Telecom, a telecommunications company in Singapore.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, launched in March 2012, is a daily ranking of the world's 500 richest people based on their net worth. It features a profile of each billionaire, and includes a tool that allows users to compare the fortunes of multiple billionaires. The index is updated every day at the close of trading in New York.