Forbes Billionaire List: Warren Buffet Removed From Top 5 After 20 Yrs; Elon Musk Jumps To #2 From #31

During times of gloom, when many businesses are struggling to survive and across the globe, governments are working on strategies to get a hold of the situation.

A record-breaking 2,755 billionaires are listed in Forbes’ annual world’s billionaires list as revealed by Forbes on Tuesday.

Rich Got Richer

The list is topped by the Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos for the fourth consecutive year, as per the report.

It seems that the ranks of the ultra-wealthy are expanding after a year, during  which the coronavirus pandemic upended world economies and threatened the livelihoods of people across the globe

In simple words, “The very, very rich got very, very richer,” as mentioned by Forbes’ Chief Content Officer Randall Lane.

Who Topped The List?

According to Forbes, this year’s billionaires are worth a combined $13.1 trillion, up from $8 trillion last year.

The Chief Executive of Tesla, Elon Musk jumped into the second spot on the list, up from 31st last year.

While Bernard Arnault, chief executive of luxury goods firm LVMH, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg occupied the top five of the world’s richest billionaires.

On the other hand, there was a fallout for investor and business tycoon Warren Buffett, who couldn’t retain the position in the top five for the first time in over two decades.

Other Highlights

This year’s highlight is the record-setting, 493 newcomers, to the list with an average age of 54, including 210 from China and 98 from the U.S. 

“A full 84 percent of them are self-made billionaires, who founded their companies rather than inherited them,” Forbes added while talking about these billionaires.

In terms of the country’s performance, now China has more billionaires than ever and its richest have bigger fortunes as the Chinese billionaires now account for nearly a fifth of the total wealth of the list,” according to Forbes.

In the same tune, the world’s second-largest economy is now home to the second-highest number of billionaires, with 698 next only to the U.S. and well over India’s 140.

This year’s results conclude the ranks of the ultra-wealthy are expanding after a year of the pandemic which threatened the livelihoods of people across the globe.