20 richest people in the world 2022 – Forbes ranking
Contents:
• The pandemic, the aggravation of the international situation and the looming financial crisis have thinned the ranks of billionaires. According to the recently published list of the American magazine Forbes – 2022, there are 87 fewer billionaires in the world (and 2668 people remain).
• Their total wealth also fell by 400 billion. However, if in one place it has gone, in another it has arrived – more than 1000 billionaires have become even richer compared to last year. Who are these richest people in the world version of 2023?
20. Changpeng Zhao
Condition: $65 billion
• Zhao started as a trading system for Wall Street sharks, and this knowledge came in handy. He broke into the ranks of billionaires at the expense of cryptocurrency: Zhao holds 70% of the shares of the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
• However, in the past year, Zhao's company has endured several major regulatory audits in its offices in Hong Kong, Japan, the US and the UK.
19. Rob Walton
Condition: $65 billion
• Rob Walton is the eldest son of the founder of retail giant Walmart. He has been CEO of the company since his father's death in 1992. In 2015, Rob retired, handing over the business to his stepson, Greg Penner, but still sits on the board of directors.
• Together with other heirs, he owns about half the shares of Walmart. The family sold about $7 billion worth of shares last year.
18. Alice walton
Condition: $65,3 billion
• Alice is the only daughter of the founder of Walmart and the sister of Rob Walton (19th). True, it is difficult to call her a business woman – Alice is more interested in art. She opened the Museum of American Art in her hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas, featuring works by Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell, and Mark Rothko.
17. Zhong Shanshan
Condition: $65,7 billion
• Surprisingly, Zhong did not even finish elementary school – which did not prevent him from becoming the richest man in China for many years. He worked as a construction worker, a journalist, sold drinks and eventually founded his own company, Nongfu Spring, whose main product is bottled water.
• Over the past year, its shares have fallen by 15%, but the billionaire is not discouraged: he managed to compensate for the losses with profits on the other, profitable front. Zhong owns a 75% stake in a COVID-19 test company.
16. Jim Walton
Condition: $66,2 billion
• And here is the third representative of the Walton family, the children of the founder of the Walmart retail chain, in the ranking of billionaires. He is the youngest of Sam Walton's children at 73 and runs the family's bank, Arvest Bank, now valued at about $20 billion.
15. Mark Zuckerberg
Condition: $67,3 billion
• Fortune turned her back on Mark: his grandiose plans to create a techtopia (or “metaverse”) did not seem to find a response in the hearts of businessmen or ordinary users. The harsh reality turned out to be crushing for technocratic illusions, and the shares of Meta (recognized as extremist) sank by 50%.
• For the first time, Mark is not in the top ten richest, but he is still on horseback – at least in 15th place in the ranking.
14. Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers with family
Condition: $74,8 billion
• The only woman in the ranking of billionaires is the granddaughter of the founder of the cosmetic concern L'Oreal. She and her family own 33% of the company's shares. Françoise has been CEO of the company since 1997, and under her leadership, L'Oreal continues to grow rapidly – they recently bought a fashionable vegan cosmetics company.
13. Carlos Slim Elu
Condition: $81,2 billion
• The richest man in Mexico, Carlos runs America Movil, the largest telecommunications company in the country, with his family. As a good housewife, Carlos doesn't keep all his eggs in one basket – his portfolio includes stocks in construction companies, mining, real estate, and a 17% stake in The New York Times.
• And Carlos' stepson, Fernando Romero, designed the family's own museum, which displays a somewhat eclectic collection of art belonging to Carlos.
12. Michael Bloomberg
Condition: $82 billion
• Bloomberg is a real shark of Wall Street, who knows the ins and outs of funds inside and out: in 1966, he began working as a simple clerk at Salomon Brothers investment bank (from where he was fired 15 years ago).
• Bloomberg laid the foundation for his wealth in 1981 by founding the information company Bloomberg LP. Now the entire population of Wall Street uses its terminals.
11. Gautam Adani with family
Condition: $90 billion
• Adani holds shares in Mundra Port, the largest commercial port in India. In addition to transportation, the billionaire is engaged in infrastructure, resource trading, electricity generation, and also owns real estate. He also holds a 74% stake in Mumbai International Airport.
• However, Adani is also caught up in the green energy craze – he plans to spend 70% of a billion dollars on renewable energy development.
10. Mukesh Ambani
Condition: $90,7 billion
• Ambani's company, Reliance, was founded by his father and focused on textiles. Since then, a lot has changed and from a modest clothing organization, it has turned into a whole concern that deals with a little bit of everything: oil, gas, telephony and retail trade.
• Now the Indian billionaire is looking towards renewable energy sources, promising to invest $80 billion in green projects. And just in case, I bought a hotel in New York.
9. Steve Ballmer
Condition: $91,4 billion
• By creating Microsoft, Bill Gates enriched not only himself. During his 14 years as CEO (from 2000 to 2014), Ballmer bought enough shares of the company to register himself in the company of billionaires. Then these stocks showed phenomenal growth – their value increased by more than 600 percent.
• After retiring from business, Ballmer decided to go in for sports, but not personally, but bought an entire Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.
8. Larry Ellison
Condition: $106 billion
• Another programmer among billionaires: in eighth place on the list of rich people is Ellison, the founder of software company Oracle.
• However, Ellison, 77, seems to be getting bored with the business: in 2014, he stepped down as CEO after 37 years in the director's chair, but continues to own 35% of the company's shares. And he moved to Hawaii, where he bought himself the island of Lanai for $ 300 million, which is now intensively developing – he is going to build industrial zones, solar power plants for electric cars, and also increase the population of the island to 6000 people (now there are 3100).
7. Sergey Brin
Condition: $107 billion
• Although Sergei, along with Page, stepped down from the CEO position in 2019, he still remains a member of the board of directors and the owner of a large block of shares. Unlike Page (the co-founder of Google), Brin is more of an intellectual than a businessman.
• About a year ago, he disappeared from public attention in the depths of the X research laboratory (yes, that's what it is called: X), but what he does there is known only to the board of directors. According to unconfirmed information, he is sponsoring some kind of development in the field of air transport.
6. Larry Page
Condition: $111 billion
• Larry co-founded Google with Sergey Brin in 1998 by writing a search algorithm and was the company's first CEO until 2001.
• And in 2019, he left the CEO position in the parent company Alphabet, but still sits on the board of directors and owns the largest stake. But for how long? Starting with , both he and Brin began selling shares of Google: Forbes estimated that both of them together earned about $ 1 billion from this.
5. Warren buffett
Condition: $118 billion
• Despite his venerable age (91), Buffett's business sense has not left: he promptly bought shares in Activision Blizzard, which fell in price after a gender scandal last year.
• The shares paid off when Microsoft decided to make a deal to buy Blizzard for $69 billion. Buffett also predicted the rise in oil prices, quickly buying shares in a large American oil company this year. For his unique sense of the market, Buffett is even called the "Oracle of Omaha" – and deservedly so. The businessman is considered one of the most successful investors in the history of America.
4. Bill Gates
Condition: $129 billion
• The founder of the world famous Microsoft diversified his capital. He is investing in a whole range of companies, including the development of "green" fuel without the slightest admixture of hydrocarbons and the purchase of farmland in the United States.
• After divorcing his wife Melinda (27 years of marriage), Gates decided to think about the soul: he does charity work and writes books about climate change and preventing new pandemics.
3. Bernard Arnault with his family
Condition: $158 billion
• The top three billionaires with the largest fortune is opened by a fashionable French bird among the American poultry house – this is Bernard Arnault, who runs the fashion empire LVMH. It includes about 70 different fashion and cosmetic brands, including well-known Russians Louis Vuitton and Sephora (as well as a chain of luxury hotels Belmond).
• And in 2021, the famous jewelry house Tiffany joined the French company. It cost Arno $15,8 billion. Even the pandemic was not able to block the way to fashion – over the past year, Arno's fortune increased by 8 billion dollars.
2. Jeff bezos
Condition: $171 billion
• This year, Bezos lost the crown of the world's richest man. And the reason is the loss of some miserable 6 billion dollars! Agree, against the background of a fortune of 171 billion, this is a trifle.
• The founder of the trading giant Amazon (once all the capacities of the trading platform were located in the servers of the Bezos garage) is no longer the CEO of the company – he recently sold the company's shares for 8,8 billion, flew into space, bought a yacht and gives part of the money to charity.
• By the way, Bezos is also responsible for the creation of one billionaire – in 2019, he divorced his wife after 25 years of marriage and, as compensation, gave her a quarter of his own Amazon shares.
1. Elon Musk
Condition: $219 billion
• What do you think, Elon Musk? Becoming the richest person in 2022 is no joke. At the same time, Musk does not get lost, trolls in social networks and buys Twitter to the accompaniment of those mourning the lost “freedom”. Musk is considered a Trump supporter, so maybe Twitterers should start worrying. And Musk himself is adding fuel to the fire with meaningful tweets that he is going to buy another stronghold of liberalism in the United States – Facebook – and delete it to the fullest.
• Elon started modestly. A young resident of South Africa taught himself programming and even then showed business acumen: he sold the first game he created for $500. He then emigrated to Canada at the age of 17 and studied at the University of Pennsylvania. He was predicted to go to Stanford University (one of the most prestigious in the US), but Musk decided to give up the granite of science for his own Zip2 software company.
• And, as it turned out, not in vain – already in 2013, his fortune totaled $ 2,7 billion. But Musk's biggest year was 2021, when his wealth quadrupled sixfold to an impressive $151 billion (thanks to Tesla and SpaceX).
• In 2022, growth was, but weaker – up to $219 billion, but the year is not over yet. But the evil tongues of envious people are not asleep and hint that Musk and Bezos have already lost $ 124 billion this year. Will Musk keep the title of the planet's top moneybag? We'll see next year!
Where is Russia on this list?
This year has turned out to be difficult for Russian billionaires – even the fortune of Vladimir Lisin, recognized by the Russian edition of Forbes the richest Russian in 2023, fell by $7,8 billion. That did not prevent him from becoming the leader of the monetary top of our country, condescendingly looking down on his competitors.
• But on an international scale, his fortune looks pale – only 18,4 billion dollars. In second and third place are Vladimir Potanin (head of Norilsk Nickel, $17,3 billion) and Pavel Durov (Telegram, $15,1 billion).
