The combined wealth of all the world’s billionaires sets a record

The combined valuation of their assets increased by two trillion dollars over the year. The total number of billionaires also rose to a historic high, with 2,781 people on the list.

The leader of the Forbes list was the French billionaire Bernard Arnault, who owns the LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) group of companies, who topped it for the second year in a row. The businessman’s assets were estimated at $233 billion. The top 3 also included the head of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, with $195 billion, and the head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, with $194 billion. And in fourth place following last year’s 16th was the head of Meta (recognized as extremist in Russia and banned) Mark Zuckerberg, who increased his fortune by $116.2 billion (up to 177 billion) thanks to the growth of the corporation’s shares.

For the first time, the richest Russian on the list was co-owner of the oil company Lukoil Vagit Alekperov, whose fortune was estimated at $28.6 billion compared to $20.5 billion a year earlier. The number of domestic billionaires on the latest Forbes list also turned out to be a record – it included 125 businessmen from Russia.