According to the “Bloomberg” Billionaires Index, the total net worth of the 500 richest people in the world jumped by 1.5 trillion dollars in 2023, compared to a loss of 1.4 trillion dollars last year.
The fortunes of these wealthy people are closely linked to the performance of technology stocks, which have reached new highs this year, despite fears of recession, prolonged inflation, high interest rates and geopolitical turmoil.
The fortunes of billionaires in the technology sector grew by 48 percent or 658 billion dollars, driven by the increasing trend for artificial intelligence.
And no one performed better than Elon Musk, who regained the title of the richest person in the world from the French luxury clothing tycoon Bernard Arnault.
Musk’s wealth now exceeds Arnaud’s by more than 50 billion dollars, after the global slowdown in demand for luxury goods caused the decline of the shares of “LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton”.
The fortune of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos increased by more than 70 billion dollars this year, and he became in second place with Arno, while the fortune of meta platforms founder Mark Zuckerberg jumped more than 80 billion dollars.
On the other hand, Indian billionaire Gautam Adani lost USD 21 billion on January 27 alone, and USD 73.3 billion over the whole year. And yet he still has an 11-digit fortune.
In a related context, Francoise Bettencourt Myers became the first woman to amass a fortune estimated at 100 billion dollars, making the heiress of the expanding French fashion and cosmetics company “L’oreal” a new achievement, Bloomberg News reported last Thursday.
Her fortune jumped to 100.2 billion dollars Thursday, according to the “Bloomberg” index of billionaires.
The achievement came as the shares of the company “L’oreal”, founded by her grandfather, rose to a record level, where next year is expected to be the best for the share price since 1998.
Despite these gains, the wealth of Bettencourt Myers is still much lower than that of its French compatriot Bernard Arnault, the founder of the luxury goods company “Louis Vuitton”, who took second place in the world rankings, with his fortune reaching 179.4 billion dollars last Wednesday.
