The richest people on the planet include 7 self-made Americans, a French luxury goods tycoon and French cosmetics heiress, and a Mexican telecommunications tycoon.
Illionarians are some of the most powerful people on Earth, wielding significant influence over vast swaths of the global economy and playing a key role in everything from international politics and media to philanthropy and scientific innovation. They have created companies that employ tens or even hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide and are behind some of the most famous brands including Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, Google and Nike. Most are self-made. Others like Bernard Arnault and Rupert Murdoch had slightly better legs, but greatly expanded their wealth and went on to create empires in their respective industries.
Many billionaires hold a large portion of their net worth in the stock of the company they founded. As the share price moves, their wealth moves with it. On March 1, 2023, Indian industrialist Mukesh Ambani was ranked as the 8th richest man in the world by Forbes. But the value of shares held by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and French cosmetics heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers (9 and 10 last month) rose, with both their fortunes surpassing Ambani's. Mike Bloomberg also made the top 10, coming in at No. 7 on April 1, while Ambani slipped to No. 13. For some near the top of Forbes' real-time billionaires list, it's a fluke of the month.
As of March 2021, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was the fifth richest person in the world, worth $97 billion. Since then, the shares of Facebook (renamed Meta Platforms) have fallen sharply, Zuckerberg has dropped out of the top 10 richest people. Even though Meta's stock has rebounded and is up nearly 70% since the start of 2023, Zuckerberg still isn't back in the top 10. As of April 1, 2023, he's in 15th place, worth $75.7 billion — up from $63 billion a month ago.
India's Gautam Adani overtook Mukesh Ambani to become the richest person in Asia in February 2022. His fortune soared by $55 billion last year and he was the third richest person in the world at the end of January, worth $127 billion. Then on January 24, short seller Hindenburg Research published a scathing report accusing the Adani Group of running a "corporate fraud", which the billionaire and his companies vehemently denied. Shares of Adani Group listed companies have fallen sharply since then. Adani dropped out of the top 10 richest on February 1, 2023. As of April 1, it is ranked 26th with a value of $44.3 billion. That's up from its No. 32 ranking on March 1, worth nearly $38 billion.
Here are the 10 richest people in the world as of April 1, 2023 at 10 a.m. ET, according to Forbes.
Stock prices fluctuate regularly, so this net worth can change daily.
Who are the 3 richest people in the world?*
1. Bernard Arnault
2. Elon Musk
3. Jeff Bezos
1. Bernard Arnault
Net worth: $225.9 billion
Source: LVMH/ luxury goods
Age: 74
Residence: Paris
Nationality: France
Bernard Arnault is the CEO and Chairman of LVMH, the world's largest luxury goods company with approximately 70 fashion and beauty brands. Among its most important are Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Moet & Chandon and Sephora. In January 2021, LVMH acquired jeweler Tiffany & Co. for $15.8 billion.
Arnault's father made millions in construction; to get started, Arnault used $15 million of that fortune to buy Christian Dior.
All five of Arnault's children work in parts of the LVMH empire. In January 2023, Arnault put his daughter Delphine in charge of Dior, the group's second largest brand.
2. Elon Musk
Net worth: $202.4 billion
Source: Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter
Age: 51
Residence: Austin, Texas
Nationality: USA
Musk is the CEO of the car company Tesla, the rocket company SpaceX and the social network Twitter. He owns 23% of Tesla between stock and options, but has pledged more than half of his shares as collateral for loans. The car company makes up roughly two-thirds of his assets. In October 2022, he bought Twitter for $44 billion and owns an estimated 74% of the social media company, which is now worth less than half of what he paid for it. His fortune increased by almost $6 billion in the month to April 1, 2023.
Originally from South Africa, Musk moved to Canada before his 18th birthday, worked various jobs, enrolled at Queen's University in Ontario, and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics.
In 2000, he merged the online bank he co-founded, X.com, with a similar organization co-founded by Peter Thiel to form PayPal, which eBay bought in 2002 for $1.4 billion. He founded SpaceX in 2002 in El Segundo, near Los Angeles. He joined Tesla as an investor and chairman in 2004, a year after its founding; he was later awarded the title of co-founder. Musk, who became CEO of Tesla in 2008, took the company public in 2010. Its market capitalization increased during 2020 and 2021. In September 2021, Musk became the richest person in the world. In November 2021, his fortune peaked at an incredible $320 billion.
Musk remained the world's richest person until December 2022, when a decline in Tesla's stock price depressed the value of his fortune. Tesla shares have fallen from their peak in November 2021, but are up more than 90% from the start of 2023 to March 31, 2023.
3. Jeff Bezos
Net worth: $126.4 billion
Source: Amazon
Age: 59
Residence: Medina, Washington
Nationality: USA
Jeff Bezos steps down as CEO of e-commerce giant Amazon in July 2021 but remains chairman; that same month he went into space on a rocket built by the private rocket company Blue Origin, which he founded and finances with billions of dollars. Between March 1 and April 1, 2023, his fortune grew by $9 billion as Amazon shares jumped 12%.
Bezos founded online retailer Amazon.com in his Seattle garage in 1994 after leaving a job in New York at hedge fund D.E. Shaw. Amazon started as an online bookseller at a time when few people bought goods online. The company has grown to dominate cloud storage and moved into film and series production to feed Amazon Prime Video.
Bezos overtook Bill Gates to become the richest person in the world in July 2017. He and Gates swapped the number one and two richest spots. Bezos was the richest person in the world from 2018 to 2021 on the Forbes list of the world's billionaires; dropped to second richest on the 2022 billionaires list. Dropped to fourth richest but returned to 3rd place on 25 January 2023 as India's Gautam Adani's fortune (previously 3rd richest) declined.
In 2019, Bezos and his wife MacKenzie divorced; as part of the settlement, she got 4% of Amazon stock and he kept 12%. He has since sold most of his stake and owns around 10% of the company. Since Amazon went public in 1997, Forbes estimates it has sold more than $27 billion worth of its stock. Through his Bezos expeditions, he has invested in a number of companies, including Airbnb and software firm Workday.
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