How the coronavirus crash reshuffled the rich list: Mukesh Ambani loses his ‘richest man in Asia’ title to Jack Ma, while Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Bernard Arnault still ride high

Mar 18 , 2020

Jack Ma, right, has officially overtaken Mukesh Ambani, left, as Asia's richest man. Photos: AP

Stocks have slumped and markets crashed amid the Covid-19 pandemic, causing a shake-up on Bloomberg’s chart of the world’s richest billionaires – with the Reliance Industries head knocked off the Asia top-spot by the former Alibaba head

Mukesh Ambani has lost his long-held title as Asia’s richest man to Jack Ma. With a net worth of US$43.4 billion, as on the day of writing, Mukesh Ambani is placed in 19th position on Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the richest people, preceded by Jack Ma with a net worth of US$44.6 billion.

After oil prices collapsed along with global stocks, Indian energy tycoon Ambani is no longer Asia’s richest man, relinquishing the title to Chinese e-commerce entrepreneur Ma.

Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Bernard Arnault, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg were the top five on the list with net worth of US$113 billion, US$105 billion, US$77.9 billion, US$77 billion, and US$65.3 billion respectively.

Ma is the co-founder and former executive chairman of Alibaba Group, publishers of the South China Morning Post. The other 12 Chinese names to make the top 100 are: Pony Ma (No. 20; US$38.9 billion), Hui Ka Yan (No. 32; US$24.5 billion), Yang Huiyan (No. 34; US$23.9 billion), He Xiangjian (No. 41; US$22.1 billion), William Ding (No. 44; US$19.6 billion), Colin Huang (No. 49; US$18.2 billion), Wang Jianlin (No. 57; US$16.4 billion), Zhang Zhidong (No. 58; US$16.4 billion), Zhong Huijuan (No. 70; US$15.8 billion), Liu Yonghao (No. 86; US$14.2 billion), Sun Piaoyang (No. 93; US$13.6 billion) and Qin Yinglin (No. 98; US$13.1 billion).

Apart from Reliance Industries chairman Ambani, Azim Premji (No. 66; US$15.9 billion), Shiv Nadar (No. 82; US$14.5 billion) and Uday Kotak (No. 96; US$13.4 billion) are the other three Indians in the top 100 list at the time of writing.

Want more stories like this? Sign up here. Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter .