Srinagar, Dec 29: Elon Musk tops the list of billionaires in 2023, with an estimated net worth of $235bn, according to the latest data about the fortunes of the world’s top 500 billionaires.
In 2023, a number of billionaires made huge fortunes, while many saw their wealth dwindling as well, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index analysed by Ziraat Times.
189 of the top 500 billionaires in 2023 came from the US, while 52 are from China. There are at least nine billionaires from India in the list, with Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani at India’s top list. Britain provided 17 of the top 500 billionaires.
Who gained and who lost in 2023?
Despite reports that Elon Musk’s stake in X, formerly known as Twitter, plunged by more than half after he paid $44bn for it in 2022, the billionaire’s bread-and-butter business, Tesla, came to his rescue.
Shares in the electric car company have more than doubled this year, giving it a notional market value of nearly $816bn and helping Musk, Tesla’s biggest shareholder, increase his overall wealth by nearly $98bn.
One of the biggest winners on that score was his rival Mark Zuckerberg, whom he was due to fight in a cage match earlier this year before the pair thought better of it. The Facebook founder’s fortune leapt by 184%, from $45bn to $128bn, as the value of the social network’s parent company, Meta, soared by 172% over the year.
There were some notable losers. While all of the top 14 increased their wealth, number 15 – the Indian billionaire Gautam Adani – saw his fortune fall by $36bn, to $884.3bn. Mukesh Ambani and other Indian billionaires made major wealth gains in 2023. The 2023 dynamics have put Mukesh Ambani at 13th rank, while Gautam Adani’s ranking remains at number 15.
Of the top 10 wealthiest people, France’s Bernard Arnault is the only representative from the rest of the world, with a $179bn fortune that grew by $17.2bn thanks to the performance of his LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton luxury group.
France also provides the highest-ranking woman on the list, the businesswoman and L’Oréal beauty empire heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, who comes in at 12th place after a $316m increase that took her net worth to $99.1bn.
Here is the ranking of the top 500 billionaires as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index (As of 27 December 2023). Details about the calculations are provided in the net worth analysis on each billionaire’s profile page. The figures are updated at the close of every trading day in New York.
