The 5 Richest People in the World

The influence of billionaires on the world’s politics, business, and philanthropy is enormous. According to Forbes, there will be 2,668 billionaires in the globe in 2022. The richest of them all is Bernard Arnault, co-founder and CEO of (LVMH), who rose to the position of the richest man in the world in 2022.

The people on this list are members of an even smaller group and hold even greater authority. A large portion of the wealth of many technological industry titans’ founders is still vested in the businesses they founded.

To avoid selling stock, these billionaires can still borrow against that wealth, delaying (or eliminating for heirs) taxes on unrealised capital gains in the process.

A variety of tax deductions are available to multi-billionaires to offset reported income, resulting in some of those on this list not paying any income tax in recent years.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at 5 of the richest people in the world.

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1. Bernard Arnault 

Bernard Arnault a French citizen is the chair and CEO of LVMH of the largest manufacturer of luxury goods in the world. With a total net worth of $172.9 billion, the LVMH brands include Louis Vuitton, Hennessey, Marc Jacobs, and Sephora.  

The majority of Arnault’s wealth is derived from his sizable ownership share in Christian Dior SE, the holding company that owns 41.2% of LVMH. 

Through his family-owned holding business, Groupe Familial Arnault, he holds shares in Christian Dior SE and an additional 6.2% in LVMH.

Being an engineer by training, Arnault first demonstrated his commercial savvy while working for his father’s construction company, Ferret-Savinel, before taking over the business in 1971. In 1979, he changed Ferret-Savinel into Férinel Inc., a real estate firm.

For an additional six years, Arnault served as the chairman of Férinel. In 1984, he bought Financière Agache, reorganised it, and eventually sold all of its properties except for Christian Dior and Le Bon Marché. 

In 1987, he received an invitation to invest in LVMH; two years later, he was named the company’s largest shareholder, board chair, and CEO.

2. Elon Musk 

Elon Musk, who has a net worth of $168.5 billion, is the second-richest person in the world.

He was raised in South Africa and graduated with bachelor’s degrees in economics and physics from the University of Pennsylvania after first enrolling at a Canadian university.

Musk postponed attending Stanford University’s graduate physics programme two days after enrolling in order to establish Zip2, one of the first internet navigation services.

He contributed a portion of the startup’s earnings to build X.com, an online payment platform that was later purchased by eBay (EBAY) and transformed into PayPal Holdings (PYPL).

3. Gautam Adani

With a net worth of $125 billion, Adani Group founder Gautam Adani surpassed Mukesh Ambani in March 2022 to claim the title of Asia’s richest person.

Adani holds significant shares in six important Indian enterprises through his ownership of the Adani Group, including 75% of Adani Enterprises, Adani Power, and Adani Transmissions, 66% of Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone, 61% of Adani Green Energy, and 37% of Adani Total Gas.

2009 saw Adani Power’s entry into the power generation industry. In 1988, Adani established Adani Enterprises to import and export goods.

His business received authorisation in 1994 to build a harbour facility at Mundra Port, which is now India’s biggest private port.

4. Bill Gate

In 1975, while still a student at Harvard, Bill Gates joined his childhood friend Paul Allen in creating new software for the first microcomputers. After the success of this effort, Gates left Harvard in his junior year and co-founded Microsoft with Allen.

Microsoft, the biggest software maker in the world, also makes a line of personal computers, offers email services via its exchange server, and sells video game consoles and related gaming accessories. It recently made significant investments in cloud services.

In 2008, Gates transitioned from CEO of the business to chair of the board. He became a board member of Berkshire Hathaway in 2004. His resignation from both boards was effective March 13, 2020.

His $115 billion net wealth is primarily derived from Cascade Investment LLC. Canadian National Railway (CNR), Deere (DE), and Republic Services (RSG) are just a few of the companies that Cascade owns. It also has private investments in real estate and energy.

5. Jeff Bezos

Amazon, which is presently valued at $144 billion and was founded by Jeff Bezos to sell books, has evolved into a one-stop shop for everything under the sun and is predicted to surpass Walmart as the largest retailer in the world by 2024.

Before surrendering 4% to his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, as part of their divorce procedures, Bezos controlled as much as 16% of Amazon in 2019.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s increased desire for online shopping, Amazon’s share price increased 76% in 2020. Bezos became the company’s executive chair after leaving his position as the e-commerce behemoth’s CEO on July 5, 2021.

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