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A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. It is a sub-category of the concept of the ultra high-net-worth individual. The American business magazine Forbes produces a global list of known U.S. dollar billionaires every year and updates an internet version of this list in real time.[1] The American oil magnate John D. Rockefeller became the world's first confirmed U.S. dollar billionaire in 1916.[2]
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As of April 2024,[update] there are 2,781 billionaires worldwide, with a combined wealth of over US$14.2 trillion, up from US$12.2 trillion in 2023.[3][4] According to a 2024 Oxfam report, the world's top 1% of earners own more combined wealth "than 95% of humanity".[5] As of October 2024, seventeen people have reached the status of USD centibillionaires, meaning that each has had a net worth of at least $100 billion.[6]
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According to the UBS/PwC Billionaires Report 2019 report released in November 2019, there are currently 2,101 U.S. dollar billionaires worldwide, from 66 countries, with a combined net worth of $8.5 trillion.[7][8] Also according to the report, billionaires have a substantial positive impact on the sustainability and success of companies controlled by them. Billionaire-controlled companies listed on the equity market returned 17.8 percent, compared with the 9.1 percent of the MSCI AC World Index. According to the authors of the report, this Billionaire Effect is connected with smart risk-taking and willingness to plan and invest for the long term.
The majority of billionaires are male, as fewer than 11% (197 of 1,826) on the 2015 list were female billionaires.[9] The United States has the largest number of billionaires of any country, with 536 as of 2015[update],[9] while China, India and Russia are home to 213, 90 and 88 billionaires, respectively.[10][11] As of 2015[update], only 46 billionaires were under the age of 40,[9] while the list of American-only billionaires, as of 2010, had an average age of 66.[12]
Different authorities use different methodologies to determine net worth and to rank them, and not all information about personal finances is publicly available. In 2019, Forbes counted a record 607 billionaires in the U.S..[13] Over the course of the 2020s, depending on the source and the year, the world's richest person has been reckoned to be Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault and family, or Elon Musk.
In 2019, 19 people became billionaires. Four were a result of death or divorce, including Julia Koch, and Jeff Bezos's former wife MacKenzie Scott.[14] From 2014 to 2019, the number of female billionaires grew by 46%. That is more than the number of male billionaires in the same period (39%). As of 2019 there were 233 female billionaires in the world, compared to 160 in 2013.[7]
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Billionaires come from a very wide number of backgrounds. A review of the education and work histories of the top 400 billionaires shows little correlation between education and success. Nearly 30% of billionaires do not have a college degree, greatly exceeding any other educational background. The most common field of university education was finance and economics, which only contributed to a combined 15.5% of billionaire educations.[15][16] There is little correlation between any university and becoming a billionaire. The top 10 universities produced just 99 of the top 400 billionaires combined, significantly less than the total number of billionaires who were not college educated. Military service produced 21 billionaires, more than any single university.[16]
Very few college-educated billionaires pursued business interests in their field of study, with the exception of computer science majors. All twelve of the computer science major billionaires worked in computer science, while only half of engineers worked in engineering, and less than a quarter of finance and economics majors ever worked in finance or economics. The most common field for billionaires to enter was sales and military service.[16]
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According to a 2016 Oxfam report, the wealth of the poorest 95% dropped by 38% between 2010 and 2015, due to an increase in the global population by 400 million.[17] In the same period, the wealth of the richest 62 people between the World's Billionaires increased by $500bn (£350bn) to $1.76tn. More recently, in 2017 an Oxfam report noted that just eight billionaires have as much net worth as "half the human race".[18][19] However, the Oxfam report has been criticized for considering debt as negative wealth, which leads to wealthy people with large amounts of debt to be considered poor or not wealthy.[20]
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These aggregated statistics for billionaires include the total number of known billionaires and the net worth of the world's wealthiest individual for each year since 2008. Data for each year is from the annual Forbes list of billionaires, with currency figures given in U.S. dollars. Data since 2018 also includes the Wealth-X billionaire census which typically finds higher numbers than Forbes.
| Year | Total number of billionaires | Combined wealth of known billionaires | Number of billionaires | World's wealthiest individual | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. | Chinese | Indian | German | Russian | Name | Net worth | |||
| 2021[21] | 2,755 | 724 | 626 | 140 | 136 | 117 | Elon Musk | $320 billion[22] | |
| 2020[23][24] | 2,095 | $10.2 trillion | 614 | 389 | 102 | 99 | Jeff Bezos | $188 billion | |
| 2019[25][26] | 2,153–2,604 | $8.6–8.7 trillion | 609–705 | 285–324 | 82–106 | 98–102 | Jeff Bezos | $131 billion | |
| 2018[27][28] | 2,208–2,754 | $9.1–9.2 trillion | 585–680 | 338–372 | 117–119 | 96–111 | Jeff Bezos | $133 billion | |
| 2017[29] | 2,043 | $7.71 trillion | 565 | 319 | 101 | 106 | Jeff Bezos | $99.6 billion | |
| 2016 | 1,810 | $6.48 trillion | 540 | 251 | 90 | 75 | Bill Gates | $75 billion | |
| 2015[10] | 1,826 | $7.05 trillion | 536 | 213 | 88 | 88 | Bill Gates | $79.2 billion | |
| 2014[30] | 1,645 | $6.4 trillion | 492 | 152 | 56[31] | 111 | Bill Gates | $78 billion | |
| 2013[32] | 1,426 | $5.4 trillion | 442 | 122 | – | 110 | Carlos Slim | $73 billion | |
| 2012[33] | 1,226 | $4.6 trillion | 425 | 95 | – | 96 | Carlos Slim | $73 billion | |
| 2011[34] | 1,210 | $4.5 trillion | 413 | 115 | – | 101 | Carlos Slim | $74 billion | |
| 2010[35] | 1,011 | $3.6 trillion | 404 | 89 | – | 62 | Carlos Slim | $53.5 billion | |
| 2009[36] | 793 | $2.4 trillion | 359 | 28 | – | 32 | Bill Gates | $40 billion | |
| 2008[37] | 1,125 | $4.4 trillion | 470 | – | – | 87 | Warren Buffett | $62 billion | |
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- Billionaire space race
- Bloomberg Billionaires Index (global)
- Forbes 400 (US citizens only)
- Foundation
- List of cities by number of billionaires
- List of countries by the number of billionaires
- List of universities by number of billionaire alumni
- List of wealthiest families
- Millionaire
- The World's Billionaires
- Business oligarch
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