Forbes recently released its list of the world’s richest people and while you might not be on it, there are several Texans who made the list.
Only three Texas billionaires cracked the top 100 for richest Americans, including tech magnate Elon Musk, who dropped from the top spot on the list to No. 2 after his acquisition of Twitter in 2022. The other two are Walmart heiress Alice Walton, who comes in at No. 21 and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell at No. 23.
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According to Forbes, the planet’s 2,640 billionaires are worth $12.2 trillion. The 735 American citizens on the list are worth an estimated $4.5 trillion and seven of the top ten wealthiest people on the planet are Americans.
In what might be a more shocking statistic, nearly half the planet’s billionaires are poorer than they were a year ago.
Forbes reported that 254 people lost their billionaire status since last year, including musician and fashion designer Kanye West.
Notably, former billionaire and founder of clothing brand Patagonia Yvon Chouinard dropped off the list after donating and pledging his fortune toward fighting climate change.
“It’s been nearly 50 years since we began our experiment in responsible business, and we are just getting started. If we have any hope of a thriving planet -- much less a thriving business -- 50 years from now, it is going to take all of us doing what we can with the resources we have. This is another way we’ve found to do our part,” Chouinard said. “We’re in business to save our home planet.”
While some people dropped off the list, others joined the three-comma club, including F1 Team Principal Toto Wolff, who has a stake in the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 team. Joining him are other famous names like sports legends LeBron James and Tiger Woods.
Here are the ten richest people in the world based on Forbes’ findings:
- Bernard Arnault - $211 billion, fashion and retail
- Elon Musk - $180 billion, Tesla and SpaceX
- Jeff Bezos - $114 billion, Amazon
- Larry Ellison - $107 billion, Oracle
- Warren Buffett - $106 billion, Berkshire Hathaway
- Bill Gates - $104 billion, Microsoft
- Michael Bloomberg - $94.5 billion, Bloomberg LP
- Carlos Slim Helu - $93 billion, Telecom
- Mukesh Ambani - $83.4 billion, Diversified
- Steve Ballmer - $80.7 billion, Microsoft
To determine the rankings of the richest Americans, Forbes said it calculated net worth using stock prices and exchange rates from March 10, 2023.
The list shows the two youngest billionaires are 18-year-old Clemente Del Vecchio of Italy, who is in the eyeglasses industry and 19-year-old Kim Jung-youn of South Korea, who earned her fortune in the gaming industry.
Forbes lists the oldest billionaire as 101-year-old George Joseph, who made his fortune in the insurance industry.