(NewsNation) — Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the richest of them all? According to this year’s Forbes billionaire’s list it’s Tesla founder, turned space adventurer and now Twitter’s largest shareholder, Elon Musk.
The South African-born transportation entrepreneur tops the annual list for the first time with a net worth of nearly $220 billion. In second place is Musk’s celestial rival, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who’s worth an estimated $171 billion.
Familiar names in the tech industry including Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Ballmer (Microsoft), Larry Page (Google) and Sergey Brin (Google) comprise most of the top ten.
Worldwide, the number of billionaires dropped in 2022. Forbes’ estimates there are 2,668 billionaires now compared to 2,755 a year ago. Collectively, those individuals are worth about $12.7 trillion.
Russia and China saw the biggest decline in the number of billionaires. There are 34 fewer in Russia compared to last year after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine set off a chain reaction of sanctions crippling his nation’s economy. In China, there are 87 fewer billionaires following a government crackdown on tech companies.
The United States leads the world with 735 billionaires on the list who are worth a collective $4.7 trillion. Despite an overall decline, China, when Macau and Hong Kong are included, remains number two with 607 billionaires.
In all, there were 236 newcomers who have become billionaires over the last year. Those include Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and international pop star and beauty mogul Rihanna.
