Musk tops Hurun Global Rich List; with $83bn, Ambani is 8th richest

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani has been ranked eighth on the Hurun Global Rich List 2021.

Ambani’s total wealth swelled to $83 billion over the past one year, the report said.

Last week, Ambani retook top spot as Asia’s wealthiest person after China’s Zhong Shanshan lost $22 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The Hurun list showed that the world added 412 billionaires — eight a week — over the last year to take the total number of billionaires to a record 3,228.

Elon Musk added a record $151 billion to become the richest man in the world for the first time, with $197 billion. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, last year’s richest, was second with $189 billion despite adding $49 billion. Bernard Arnault of LVMH ($114 billion), Bill Gates ($110 billion) and Mark Zuckerberg ($101 billion) are at the third, fourth and fifth riches people in the world, respectively.

At 1,058, China has the largest number of billionaires in the world, compared with the United States with 696.

India is third with 177, up 40. Germany, Britain and Switzerland follow with 100+ billionaires each.

Also read: Ambani trumps China’s Zhong Shanshan to top Asia rich list

“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,” Hurun Report chairman and chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf said in a statement.

“The speed of wealth creation is nothing short of staggering.  Three individuals added more than $50 billion in a single year, led by Elon Musk with $151 billion, on the back of the rise of e-cars, whilst e-commerce billionaires Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Colin Huang of Pinduoduo added $50 billion each. At this rate, expect to see 50 or more break through the US$100 billion mark within the next five years.”

“China has added more new faces than the rest of the world combined, and pulled away big time from the USA in the past year. Despite the Trade War with the USA, China added 259 new billionaires, to become the first country in the world to top 1,000 ‘known’ dollar billionaires with 1,058, more than the combined total of the next three countries of the USA, India and Germany. In the last five years, China has added 490 billionaires, compared with 160 in the US.”

Also read: Ambani’s wealth doubled during pandemic, says Oxfam study

Beijing is the billionaire capital of the world with 145 billionaires living there. Shanghai overtook New York to second place, with 113 billionaires. Shenzhen added 30 billionaires to overtake its neighbour Hong Kong and London for fourth place. Six of the Top 10 cities with the most billionaires were in China.

The cut-off to make the Top 10 ten years ago was $25 billion, today it is $80 billion. To make the Top 100 or Top 1000 has also more than doubled,  Hoogewerf said.