Today, the 10 richest people in the world control $1.3 trillion in wealth.
This scale of wealth is equal to approximately 1.4% of the world economy, Amazon’s entire market cap, or spending $1 million a day for 3,000 years. In fact, it’s double the amount seen just two years ago ($663 billion).
As billionaire wealth accumulates at a remarkable speed, we feature a snapshot of the world’s richest in 2022, based on data from the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List.
Top 10 Richest People in the World
Elon Musk, with a fortune of $212 billion, is the richest person on the planet.
Tesla delivered nearly one million vehicles globally in 2021. Despite facing a computer chip shortage, Tesla deliveries rose 87% year-over-year. Musk, who is also CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX, plans to send the largest rocket ever built into orbit in 2022. It spans 119 meters tall.
With a net worth of $168 billion, Jeff Bezos falls in second place. Bezos is the only billionaire in the top 10 to see a decline in wealth (-$9 billion) over the year. Since last March, Amazon shares have risen just 3% in light of weaker earnings and lagging retail performance.
Most notably, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook) fell off the top 10 for the first time since 2016. Meta shares plunged after reporting the first-ever drop in global daily active users since 2004.
Crypto Billionaires in 2022
At least 10 people worldwide have seen their wealth climb into the billions thanks to the stratospheric rise of cryptocurrencies.
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the FTX crypto derivatives exchange, is at the top, with a jaw-dropping $24 billion net worth. Bankman-Fried launched the exchange in 2019 when he was 27. FTX now has one million users and a $32 billion valuation.
