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Taylor Swift: Global Superstar
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Danish Ravi / dpa
It was an unprecedentedly successful year for the mega-rich. According to the business magazine "Forbes", there have never been as many billionaires as there are this year: For 2024, the magazine records 2,781 billionaires around the world, which is 141 more than in the previous year and 26 more than the previous record from 2021. Also Global superstar Taylor Swift has made it into the select club of the super-rich for the first time.
But that's not all: the richest people in the world are also richer than ever before. Together they hold assets worth $14.2 trillion. That's $2 trillion more than before 2023 and $1.1 trillion above the previous record, also from 2021.
Zuckerberg with the biggest gain
For the second time in a row, Bernard Arnault leads the billionaires' club. The French luxury entrepreneur has an estimated fortune of $233 billion. His conglomerate LVMH is the company behind brands like Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co. and Sephora. This makes Arnault $38 billion richer than the world's number two, Elon Musk. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was close behind with an estimated fortune of $194 billion.
According to Forbes, no one made more profit in 2024 than Mark Zuckerberg. The Meta boss recorded an increase of $116.2 billion in a single year - which puts him in fourth place in the ranking of the super rich. After him, Larry Ellison from Oracle rounds out the top five.
AI boom also brings billionaires a windfall
More than a dozen newcomers to the billionaires' list made their fortunes through artificial intelligence businesses. Among them is Sam Altman from OpenAI. The rapid demand for AI has also driven up technology stocks in general, increasing the total wealth of the world's tech billionaires by around $750 billion to $2.6 trillion in just one year, more than any other industry.
But celebrities outside the technology industry are also getting richer: With an estimated fortune of 1.1 billion US dollars, Taylor Swift joins the Forbes billionaires after the record-breaking first leg of her Eras tour. She is the first musician to have earned billions solely from songwriting and performances. Swift joins about a dozen other famous A-list billionaires, including George Lucas ($5.5 billion), Michael Jordan ($3.2 billion) and Kim Kardashian ($1.7 billion).
As in previous years, the United States remains the land of billionaires. 813 super-rich people with assets of $5.7 trillion lived in the USA in 2024. Despite economic problems, China remains in second place in the Asian country with 473 billionaires. India is currently on the rise. There are now 200 Indian billionaires - more than ever before.
Women are still rare among the world's billionaires: only 369 of the 2,781 billionaires are female, which corresponds to around 13 percent. The richest of them is once again Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, heiress to the L'Oréal fortune. Its value is estimated at $99.5 billion.
eru