World added 8 billionaires in a week in 2020, says Hurun Rich List

The world added 8 billionaires a week -- 412 in total -- to take the total to a record 3,228 billionaires, the 10th edition of Hurun Global Rich List 2021 released today suggests. As per the list, in the past year, billionaires added "the equivalent of the GDP of Germany to take their wealth to the equivalent of China". In monetary terms, the rich businessmen added $3.5 trillion to take their total wealth to $14.7 trillion, which shows a huge concentration of economic power.

The rich list comprises 3,228 billionaires from 2,402 companies across 68 countries of the world. Elon Musk of Tesla added a record $151 billion to become the richest man in the world at $197 billion net worth. Jeff Bezos, who was the last year's richest man, grabbed the second spot with $189 billion net worth. Bernard Arnault, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg stood at third, fourth, and fifth place at $114 billion, $110 billion, and $101 billion net worth, respectively.

Hurun Report chairman and chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf said, "Despite the disruption caused by Covid-19, this year has seen the biggest wealth increase of the last decade. A stock markets boom, driven partly by quantitative easing, and flurry of new listings have minted eight new dollar billionaires a week for the past year. The world has never seen this much wealth created in just one year, much more than perhaps could have been expected for a year so badly disrupted by Covid-19."

He said the speed of wealth creation is nothing short of staggering as three individuals added over $50 billion in a single year, led by Musk, Bezos and Colin Huang of Pinduoduo.

China leads the chart with 1,058 billionaires, followed by the US with 696, India 177, and Germany, the UK and Switzerland at 100. By continent, Asia accounted for 51 per cent of the world's billionaires.

Meanwhile, RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani, 63, saw his wealth grow 24 per cent to $83 billion in 2020, on the back of a surge in the value of energy and telecom giant Reliance. Among cities in India, Mumbai accounted for a maximum number of billionaires (60), followed by New Delhi (40) and Bengaluru (22).