- Beijing houses 100 billionaires, according to the latest Forbes Rich List
- New York city has 99, and the US has more than any other country
- Gina Rinehart is the richest Australian, and 9th richest woman in the world
Jeff Bezos is the world’s richest person, for the fourth year running, according to the latest Forbes Rich List, but Beijing has beaten New York to boast the highest number of billionaires.
One hundred of them now reside in the Chinese capital, 33 more than last year, and one more than the Big Apple.
Beijing’s richest is Tok Tok founder Zhang Yiming in 39th spot on the list, at US$35.6 billion. His app was one of the breakout success stories of the past year. With everyone stuck indoors, where else to express your inner creative self than to dance to a short music clip?
But everyone was very much put in the shade by Amazon founder Bezos, who is now worth an incredible US$177 billion.
Another benefit from the pandemic – people ordering everything online to their home – saw Bezos’ net worth grow by an eye-popping US$64 billion. He has said he will step down as CEO this year.
Overall, Forbes counted 2,755 billionaires in their 35th annual list, 660 more than a year ago (+ 31%).
As Forbes said, “in a year like no other – and we’re not talking about the pandemic – rapid-fire public offerings, surging cryptocurrencies and skyrocketing stock prices” created the backdrop an explosion of wealth-creation.
A record 493 new entrants made the list for the first time (one every 17 hours), including 210 from China. 86% of the list were richer than a year ago.
Although Beijing took out the place where most of them live, the US still has the most by country, with 724, followed by China (including Hong Kong and Macau) with 698.
Other household names in the world top ten include: Elon Musk (Tesla) in the number 2 spot with $151B, Bill Gates (Microsoft co-founder) fourth at $124B, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) in fifth place with $97B, then Larry Ellison (Oracle) $93B, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google co-founders) with around $90B each.
The highest Australians on the list are:
- 70th: Gina Rinehart, $23.6B
- 87th: Andrew Forrest, $20.4B
- 145th: Andrew Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian, $14.2B
- 150th: Scott Farquhar, Atlassian, $14B
Gina Rinehart is the 9th richest woman on the list, as well as being the richest Australian.
