(CU)_It has been a fantabulous pandemic for the world’s richest people, as a record-breaking 2,755 billionaires found their names in the Forbes annual billionaire list.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos topped the poll for the fourth consecutive year, with a fortune of $177bn, while Tesla chief executive Elon Musk leapfrogged from his rank at No 31, to the second place. As the ranks of the super wealthy swelled over the past year, Musk saw his fortune grow $126.4bn from a year ago, when he was worth just $24.6bn.
Despite the pandemic, which threatened the livelihoods of millions of people, a record of 493 people joined the list, which means a new billionaire was added to the list every 17 hours. Together the plutocrats reported a combined fortune of $13.1tn, in comparison to the $8tn on the 2020 list.
However, the past year has not been so glorious for some of the world’s richest, particularly former US President Donald Trump, who plummeted almost 300 places to no 1,299 on the list.
Although the American media personality lost millions on his hotels, retail locations and golf resorts, over the past few years, nevertheless, some of the businesses which were distancing themselves from him over the Capitol attack appear to be leasing his properties, enabling him to accumulate millions of dollars on some of them.
Meanwhile, 61 billionaires dropped off the list this year, and among them were Galen Weston, chairman of Canadian food and retail giant George Weston, which struggled with the fallout of the pandemic.
Another noteworthy individual who dropped off the list was Isabel dos Santos, who was once the richest woman in Africa. She was removed from the billionaire ranks earlier this year following corruption charges which led to asset freezes.
The richest newcomer was Miriam Adelson who inherited her late husband Sheldon Adelson’s casino empire and a $38.2bn fortune. British billionaire chemical engineer James Ratcliffe, who is reportedly Britain’s richest man, climbed five spots from his previous rank at No. 108 with a fortune of $17bn.
While model and businesswoman Kylie Jenner lost her title as world’s youngest self-made billionaire last year, however her sister Kim Kardashian West joined the billionaires club, with her net worth soaring from $780m in October to $1bn this month.
The title of world’s youngest self-made female billionaire was claimed by the 31-year-old co-founder of the Bumble dating app, Whitney Wolfe Herd, while Europe’s Guillaume Pousaz, 39, was declared the youngest self-made male billionaire.
Forbes’ chief content officer, Randall Lane, noted that “the very, very rich got very, very richer” during the pandemic, as stock markets continued to hit new highs, despite the loss of livelihoods by millions of people across the planet. The crisis is expected to increase the number of people living in extreme poverty to about 150 million, as the number collated by the World Bank rose for the first time in 20 years.
