Eight out of the 10 on the 2022 Forbes World’s billionaire list are from the United States, then one from France and the other from India.
America still leads the world, with 735 billionaires worth a collective $4.7 trillion, including Elon Musk, who tops the World’s Billionaires list for the first time.
The Forbes’ 36th-annual ranking also revealed that the most dramatic drops have occurred in Russia, where there are 34 fewer billionaires than last year following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and China, where a government crackdown on tech companies has led to 87 fewer Chinese billionaires on the list.
The 2022 list also has more than 1,000 billionaires who are richer than they were a year ago.
There are also 236 newcomers who have become billionaires over the past year—including the first ever from Barbados, Bulgaria, Estonia and Uruguay.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and the richest person in the world saw his net worth surge in 2021 thanks to the increase in the share price of Tesla (where he currently owns 17% of the company)—with Tesla shares rising nearly 50% in 2021.
Founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, fell out of the top 10 in February 2022, when Meta's share price plunged after a disappointing earnings report. Zuckerberg's net worth is down $40 billion in 2022.
Below are the 10 wealthiest people on the planet according to Forbes;
The list showed only 33 of the 236 newcomers to this year’s billionaires list are women, and just 11 of them are self-made.