Move over, Elon Musk: who’s the richest billionaire in 2023? Bernard Arnault takes first place with LVMH, with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Mukesh Ambani among the top 10 too
- Elon Musk, who runs Tesla, SpaceX and recently announced AI ‘TruthGPT’, was replaced by LVMH’s Bernard Arnault as world’s richest man when his buy-out of Twitter led to a drop in Tesla stock
- Mukesh Ambani is also Asia’s richest man thanks to Reliance Industries, while Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, media mogul Michael Bloomberg and Microsoft’s Bill Gates are also doing very well for themselves
Musk had previously held the top global position for over a year until his net worth dropped due to Tesla shares going down as a result of his pricey US$44 billion Twitter buy-out deal.
While it’s important to remember that wealth can fluctuate at any given moment, Forbes’ recently released “Richest People in the World” ranking gives a strong indication on the who’s who for this year’s billionaires. The publication noted 2,640 10-figure fortunes, down from 2,668 last year. The United States still has the most billionaires with 735 individuals, followed by China (including Hong Kong and Macau) coming in second with 562 billionaires.
So let’s see who made the cut in 2023, according to Forbes’ calculations.
10. Steve Ballmer – US$81 billion
Since retiring as CEO of Microsoft, Ballmer bought the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers for US$2 billion. The 67-year-old still holds shares in Redmond, which makes the Windows operating system, Surface tablet computers and Xbox game consoles, states Bloomberg.
9. Mukesh Ambani – US$83 billion
