Many billionaires seem immune to the financial consequences of the corona crisis. Currently there are 2,755 people with more than 1 billion dollars (more than 850 million euros) in assets. That is 660 more than a year ago. In addition, 86 percent of them saw their wealth increase in the past year. This is evident from the annual billionaire list of the American business magazine Forbes.
The combined net worth of all those billionaires is $ 13.1 trillion. That is 64 percent more than the 8 trillion dollars from a year ago.
During that period, many billionaires joined and existing billionaires saw their wealth grow. Rising share prices played an important role in this.
For example, the net worth of the number one, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, grew by 64 billion dollars to 177 billion dollars as the stock price of his company rose sharply.
Number two Elon Musk makes it all the way. He was able to take advantage of an explosive rise in Tesla’s stock price. Musk now has $ 151 billion in assets, up from $ 24.6 billion last year. So his assets have increased sixfold in one year.
Richest European is in third place
In third place is the richest European: LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, the luxury group behind Louis Vuitton bags, among others. He has assets of $ 150 billion. That equates to almost doubling compared to last year. He too benefited from a higher share price.
The top five also includes Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Super investor Warren Buffett is not in the top five for the first time since 1993. With a net worth of $ 96 billion, he is the sixth richest person on earth.
Of the 660 billionaires who joined in the past year, 493 have not been on the list before. This means that roughly every eighteen hours a new billionaire joined. 210 of them are from China and Hong Kong and 98 from the United States.
All Dutch billionaires saw their wealth grow
There are also eleven Dutch people on the list. With a capital of 6 billion dollars, Randstad founder Frits Goldschmeding is the richest Dutch person on the list. Joop van den Ende, John de Mol and Jitse Groen, among others, are also on the list. All Dutch billionaires saw their wealth grow in the past year.
Strangely enough, Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken is not listed as Dutch, but as British Forbes. She is in 116th place with a net worth of $ 16.7 billion.
The Fentener van Vlissingen and Brenninkmeijer families cannot be found on the list.
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