The World's Billionaires Netted A Record $14.2 Trillion. Here's How They Made Their Money

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It’s been a banner year for the mega-wealthy. Forbes found an unprecedented 2,781 billionaires around the globe for this year’s World’s Billionaires list—141 more than in 2023 and 26 more than the previous record, set in 2021. The super-rich are also richer than ever, with their combined wealth hitting $14.2 trillion—$2 trillion more than just a year ago and $1.1 trillion above the previous record, also set in 2021.  As with the economy in general, the money is concentrated at the very top. There are now a record 14 people who are members of the $100 Billion Club, the elite group of people whose fortunes stretch into 12 digits. That’s up from just one four years ago. These lucky few are worth $2 trillion in all, meaning just 0.5% of the world’s 2,781 billionaires hold 14% of all billionaire wealth.  The richest of all is Bernard Arnault, who holds the No. 1 spot for the second year in a row. The French luxury goods kingpin is worth an estimated $233 billion, $22 billion more than in 2023 thanks to another record year for his conglomerate LVMH, the company behind brands such as Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co. and Sephora. He’s $38 billion richer than the world’s No. 2, Elon Musk, who is worth an estimated $195 billion. Just behind him, at No. 3, is Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who is worth an estimated $194 billion. Forbes used stock prices and exchange rates from March 8, 2024 for this year’s ranking.  0:00 Introduction 0:30 How Many Billionaires Made The Cut? 1:10 Who Is The Richest Billionaire In The World? 2:16 How Did Elon Musk Fare? 3:21 AI And Other Billionaire Trends 6:02 What Industries Minted Billionaires? 7:02 Donald Trump's Net Worth 8:55 Who Are Newcomers To The List 11:30 Is The Economy Really Doing Well?  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/billionaires  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:03 - Hi everybody, I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News.

00:06 Joining me now is my colleague, Forbes Senior Editor,

00:09 Chase Peterson-Withorn.

00:10 Chase, thank you so much for joining me.

00:12 - Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

00:14 - First and foremost, I wanna extend a big congratulations.

00:17 The Forbes Billionaires list has just dropped.

00:20 You were one of the editors on that list.

00:22 I can only imagine how big of an undertaking that is.

00:25 So congratulations.

00:27 - Yeah, thank you so much.

00:29 - I do wanna do a deep dive into the list,

00:32 but first give us an overview.

00:33 How many billionaires made the cut?

00:36 - Yeah, so it is a record year for billionaires.

00:40 It's a great time to be enormously wealthy.

00:45 We found 2,781 billionaires all around the world,

00:49 which is the record.

00:52 It's about 141 more than we've found before.

00:55 And they're worth a record $14.2 trillion.

00:58 So they're richer than ever,

01:00 and there are more of them than ever.

01:03 - The super rich keep getting richer.

01:05 That seems to be a trend.

01:06 So there's more billionaires this year.

01:09 Let's cut to the chase, if you will.

01:11 Who is number one?

01:12 Who is the richest person in the world?

01:15 - The richest person in the world is Bernard Arnault,

01:19 who is a French billionaire who's worth $233 billion.

01:25 And he's the man behind LVMH,

01:27 which is a huge fashion conglomerate

01:30 that owns brands like Louis Vuitton,

01:32 Sephora, Tiffany, Christian Dior,

01:37 sort of has his hand in everything.

01:39 - Is him being at the top of the list,

01:41 is this at all surprising to you?

01:43 Who covers billionaires for a living?

01:45 - No, he's been at the top.

01:49 He was at the top last year,

01:50 but he's been over the past few years

01:52 battling it out with Elon Musk mostly

01:55 for the title of richest person in the world.

01:58 This year, he took the title very handedly.

02:00 He's something like $40 billion richer than Elon Musk,

02:04 who was number two.

02:05 And then Jeff Bezos was number three,

02:07 just a billion dollars behind Musk.

02:10 So he has about a $40 billion lead on those guys,

02:12 which is a tremendous amount of money.

02:15 - Let's talk about the number two, Elon Musk.

02:18 This was the first year, first full year he's owned Twitter.

02:22 He's owned it now since April of 2022.

02:24 How has that impacted his fortune?

02:26 - Yeah, it hasn't been great for his fortune.

02:30 You know, Musk is fortunate to have a lot of stock in Tesla,

02:34 which has done very well over the years.

02:37 SpaceX is doing very well.

02:40 Twitter, not so much.

02:42 That was an investment that he made

02:45 at a price that a lot of people thought

02:47 was too high at the time.

02:49 It was clearly too high to most people

02:52 by the time he actually closed the deal,

02:54 which of course he fought to get out of the deal

02:55 and wasn't able to.

02:57 And it really has just continued

02:58 not to be a great deal for him.

03:01 You know, he struggled with advertising revenue.

03:04 It's brought a lot of scrutiny.

03:06 And you can see a lot of the investors

03:08 that have invested alongside him

03:10 have continued to sort of mark down

03:12 the value of their stake in the business.

03:15 So yeah, Twitter, maybe good for Elon's free time,

03:19 but definitely not great for his net worth.

03:22 - Billionaires, as you noted,

03:23 made a fortune over the past year.

03:25 I wanna read a stat that Forbes found.

03:27 The world's billionaires are now 120% richer

03:30 than they were a decade ago.

03:32 Can you dive in here a little bit, read the tea leaves?

03:35 How did their fortunes grow so fast?

03:38 - Yeah, it's been a great decade for billionaire wealth.

03:41 You know, for a lot of the early, you know, mid 2010s,

03:46 we were in the midst of a huge bull market.

03:48 And, you know, the markets were really rapidly rising

03:52 and interest rates were really low.

03:54 And it was just a great environment

03:55 for rich people to continue getting richer.

03:58 There was a brief dip during the COVID crash

04:01 where a lot of billionaires lost a whole lot of wealth

04:04 and they made it back very, very quickly.

04:06 And, you know, you can sort of track

04:08 right along with the stock market, right?

04:09 It's been up a lot over the last decade.

04:11 It crashed really hard during COVID.

04:13 It came roaring back.

04:15 And, you know, despite inflation and despite wars

04:19 and, you know, all of the sort of turmoil

04:22 that's going on in the world,

04:24 markets in a lot of the world

04:26 are higher than they've ever been.

04:27 And, you know, the people who sort of control those markets

04:31 are certainly richer than they've ever been by and large.

04:35 - I wanna talk about themes and trends

04:37 that you saw from this year.

04:39 The past year really has been about AI.

04:42 Did we see an uptick in billionaires who work in this field

04:45 who have their hands in AI?

04:46 What did that look like?

04:48 - Yeah, you know, the AI gold rush

04:51 is certainly in full swing.

04:53 And there are a lot of billionaires

04:56 who are getting richer because of it.

04:57 Some of them are starting AI companies,

05:01 people who are running AI companies,

05:04 people like Lisa Su, who's the CEO of AMD,

05:06 is a new billionaire this year.

05:09 People like Sam Altman, who runs OpenAI,

05:12 is a new billionaire this year,

05:13 although not because of OpenAI,

05:15 he doesn't have stock in OpenAI,

05:17 but he made a lot of other tech investments.

05:19 So, you know, there are a lot of people

05:22 who are getting rich directly off of AI.

05:25 But there are also a lot of people

05:26 who are sort of providing servers to AI companies

05:29 who are getting wealthier.

05:30 And just tech fortunes in general

05:33 that are just up a lot over the past year

05:36 based just on broad AI enthusiasm in the markets.

05:39 You know, the idea that artificial intelligence

05:41 will also positively impact their business.

05:44 You know, so just in general,

05:46 if you look at the great tech fortunes,

05:47 people like Larry Ellison,

05:49 or, you know, the Google co-founders,

05:51 or Mark Zuckerberg, you know,

05:53 those guys are all by and large up quite a bit.

05:56 And, you know, a good portion of that

05:58 is definitely just broad AI enthusiasm.

06:00 - Aside from enthusiasm we see with AI, tech in general,

06:05 what other industries minted billionaires this year?

06:08 - Yeah, so, you know, there's a few industries

06:12 that are up quite a bit,

06:13 but it certainly is one of those years

06:15 where a rising tide sort of lifts all boats.

06:18 The markets are up, and so sort of everybody's up

06:21 for the most part.

06:22 But, you know, crypto is surging right now.

06:24 And so we have had several people

06:26 who have previously dropped off the ranks

06:29 regain their billionaire status.

06:31 And then, you know, some existing crypto billionaires,

06:33 people like CZ and the Winklevoss twins,

06:36 who are a lot richer than they were, you know, a year ago.

06:40 So it's been great for tech, it's been great for AI,

06:42 it's been great for crypto.

06:44 But, you know, you have people also getting wealthy

06:46 in fashion, people like Christian Louboutin

06:50 is a new billionaire this year.

06:52 And you have people getting rich in, you know,

06:56 fortunes, everything, manufacturing, finance.

06:59 It's sort of just a good time for everybody.

07:02 - It's a good time to be a billionaire.

07:04 I wanna talk about one billionaire

07:05 you and I have talked about.

07:07 Forbes has talked about him for decades now,

07:09 him and his wealth,

07:10 and that is arguably the most known billionaire,

07:13 and that is Donald Trump.

07:15 He's had a year of legal battles.

07:18 How have these legal woes impacted his fortune?

07:21 - It's been an up and down year,

07:24 I would say, for Donald Trump.

07:25 He was down, and now he is up.

07:30 We'll put it that way.

07:31 So, you know, it's been a tough year for Trump

07:35 on the legal front,

07:36 and of course he's battling for the White House.

07:39 And a lot of his core, you know, real estate holdings

07:43 are not doing very well.

07:45 Then you factor in about a half a billion dollars

07:49 that he now owes from a couple of legal battles

07:52 in New York State.

07:54 You know, that's a debt on his balance sheet.

07:55 So his net worth is down about half a billion dollars

07:59 because he owes this new money.

08:01 But, you know, shares of Trump Media and Technology Group,

08:06 which runs Truth Social, went public recently,

08:09 and they've added billions and billions of dollars

08:13 to Donald Trump's net worth,

08:15 more than doubling his net worth

08:16 just on the day that the shares went public.

08:18 So Donald Trump, this happened

08:20 after we locked in the billionaires list.

08:22 So on the list, Donald Trump is down

08:24 a couple hundred million dollars from the year before,

08:27 basically because he owes more than $540 million

08:31 in legal judgments now.

08:33 But since then, you know, his net worth

08:37 has more than doubled,

08:39 and now he's worth something like six to $7 billion.

08:41 So yeah, a rocky year filled with a lot of chaos,

08:46 even by Donald Trump's standards.

08:49 - Volatile year for him.

08:51 As of now, he's on top.

08:53 He's been on the billionaires list for years though,

08:55 but I do want to pivot a little bit.

08:56 On the flip side, let's talk about some fresh faces.

09:00 Who were some of those newcomers on the billionaires list?

09:03 Because I did look at the list

09:04 and there are some household names.

09:06 - Yeah, definitely.

09:08 You know, there are a handful of famous faces

09:12 that have joined the list this year.

09:14 Taylor Swift, definitely the most famous of all,

09:17 but also, you know, Magic Johnson, Sam Altman,

09:20 as we've mentioned, Dick Wolf,

09:22 the TV producer behind "Law & Order."

09:25 And then a lot of people whose names maybe aren't as famous,

09:28 but the companies that they founded

09:30 or the brands that they've sort of produced

09:32 are sort of household names.

09:35 So you have people like Christian Louboutin,

09:37 who's a fashion billionaire

09:39 who created the very iconic red sole high heels.

09:42 Todd Graves, the founder and CEO of Raising Cane's,

09:45 the fried chicken, you know, best food chain.

09:48 And this guy, William Goldring,

09:50 who probably nobody's ever heard of,

09:52 but you might've drank his Fireball whiskey

09:54 or Southern Comfort or the more expensive stuff

09:57 that he also produces, like George T. Stagg

09:59 and Pappy Van Winkle.

10:00 So famous faces and famous brands

10:03 are joining the billionaires list all the time.

10:07 - When you look at this year,

10:08 aside from the trends you've already mentioned,

10:10 that the rich keep getting richer,

10:12 rising tides lift all ships in industries

10:15 spanning from fashion to sports to social media,

10:18 what other trends do you see

10:21 looking at this list as a whole?

10:23 - Yeah, you know, the biggest trends I would say are,

10:26 first off, of course, the rich getting richer

10:29 and sort of record wealth, record billionaires.

10:31 The other biggest trend is certainly AI

10:35 and what it's done to tech,

10:37 you know, lifting all of these tech fortunes

10:40 up to such great heights.

10:41 But also you can sort of look at,

10:45 you can sort of get a good regional snapshot

10:46 to what's going on around the world.

10:48 So there's a record number of American billionaires.

10:51 We found 813 of them.

10:53 And they're richer than ever.

10:55 So it's a great year for American billionaires.

10:58 But there's also a record number of Indian billionaires.

11:00 There's 200 Indian billionaires,

11:02 more than we've ever found before.

11:03 China, meanwhile, not doing so well.

11:07 China lost 89 billionaires

11:09 and it combined $200 billion in billionaire wealth

11:13 over the past year.

11:14 You know, there's just troubled economic headwinds in China

11:18 in the property sector and just in general.

11:21 So you can get a good snapshot sort of

11:22 of what's going on around the world.

11:24 You know, Europe's doing well, America's doing well.

11:26 Places like Japan, you know, are doing well,

11:28 but China and India, of course, but China, not so much.

11:32 - Chase, what's really interesting

11:33 is that there's a record number of billionaires

11:35 in America over 800,

11:37 but the economy continues to be a top concern

11:40 over the past few years.

11:41 Inflation has come down a bit.

11:44 Why do you think that there's so many American billionaires,

11:47 but on the flip side, the economy's a top concern?

11:51 - Yeah, it's a great question.

11:53 I think part of it is a disconnect,

11:57 maybe in general, between how people are feeling

12:00 and how the market is doing.

12:02 You know, if you only judge people

12:04 by what their 401ks are doing,

12:06 a lot of people are a lot better

12:10 than they were a few years ago.

12:12 But I think, you know,

12:14 a lot of people don't necessarily feel that way

12:16 because inflation has taken a bite out of paychecks

12:19 and all sorts of reasons for economic uncertainty.

12:23 Billionaires don't really have

12:24 the same economic uncertainty that we do.

12:27 You know, they're the ones who own big amounts of the stock

12:31 of the companies that we own,

12:32 small amounts of that stock.

12:35 They're the ones who founded those companies

12:37 and are running them today.

12:39 So, you know, they're certainly benefiting pretty greatly

12:41 from the increase in share price.

12:44 So it's a great time for the wealthy.

12:46 It might even be a great time for your investments,

12:48 but whether that's a great time for your actual bank account

12:52 and how you actually feel and your purchasing power,

12:55 you know, that might be a separate question.

12:57 - It's a super time for the super rich.

12:59 Chase, thank you so much for your reporting.

13:01 Big congrats again on the list

13:03 and I hope to speak with you again soon.

13:06 - Yeah, thank you so much.

13:07 (upbeat music)

13:10 (upbeat music)

13:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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