Jeff Bezos Has Company in the World’s Smallest Club
“The wonderful thing about Tiggers/Is I’m the only one,” sang the one and only Tigger in Walt Disney’s classic “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.” Amazon’s Jeff Bezos may or may not have Tigger’s irrepressible personality, but for the moment at least, he’s not the only one on the planet with a net worth of $100 billion or greater.
Bezos’ companion in the $100-billion club, as tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is another Seattle-area tech magnate: Bill Gates, whose fortune this year sits at $100 billion on the nose.
Formerly the world’s richest man, Gates put another $9.5 billion in his piggybank over the past year. Bezos gained about $20.7 billion for a net worth of $146 billion.
Whether either man remains in this club for long is an open question, Bloomberg News reported, given Gates’ propensity for large-scale charitable giving and Bezos’ impending divorce settlement.
Although the world’s third-richest individual is a Frenchman—Bernard Arnault, with a net worth of $86.2 billion—the U.S. has produced more billionaires that any other nation. That’s according to Wealth-X’s most recent Billionaire Census last May, which found that the U.S. was home to 25% of the world’s 2,754 billionaires.
The census found that the billionaire population grew faster than total population across all regions over the preceding 12 months. And, while the U.S. may lead in sheer numbers, as well as share of the total net worth of the world’s billionaires, six countries outside the U.S. saw their billionaire ranks grow at a faster pace year over year.
Moreover, North America is no longer home to the world’s largest billionaire population. For the first time, Asia last year became the leading continent for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, with 884 billionaires, according to Wealth-X.
Bloomberg reported that as the billionaire population is increasing, so is the wealth gap. It’s not limited to the U.S.
Arnault’s wealth, for instance, is equal to about 3% of France’s economy. In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili’s $4.9-billion fortune is the equivalent of about one-third of his country’s GDP.
For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Paul Bubny
- ◦Economy
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