Jose Sanchez
Research expert covering society, economy, & politics for Latin America
Billionaires around the world - statistics & facts
In 2023, Elon Musk, was by far the richest person in the world, with a wealth estimated at more than 320 billion U.S. dollars, way ahead of Jeff Bezos, the second on the list. That same year, North America and Europe had the highest geographical concentration of billionaires, and New York was the city hosting the highest number of billionaires worldwide.
While this is not necessarily the industry from which the billionaires earn their fortune, nearly one-fourth of the world's male billionaires devote most of their time to banking and financing. On the other hand, the first industry among female billionaires was non-profit and social organizations. Concerning asset allocation; almost 40 percent of the wealth of male billionaires is derived from public holdings, while the same was the case for only 22 percent of female billionaires.
Typology of billionaires & sources of wealth
According to the 2024 Billionaire Census, most billionaires are “self-made”. However, there is a significant difference between male and female billionaires: whereas most of the former were “self-made”, close to 40 percent of the latter had inherited their fortune. Furthermore, when looking at the demographics of billionaires globally, only 13 percent were women. Finally, only about 10 percent of the billionaires worldwide were younger than 50 years old. As of March 2025, 20-year-old Clemente Del Vecchio was the world's youngest billionaire.While this is not necessarily the industry from which the billionaires earn their fortune, nearly one-fourth of the world's male billionaires devote most of their time to banking and financing. On the other hand, the first industry among female billionaires was non-profit and social organizations. Concerning asset allocation; almost 40 percent of the wealth of male billionaires is derived from public holdings, while the same was the case for only 22 percent of female billionaires.
Wealth distribution
While there were 3,323 billionaires worldwide in 2023, most of the world's population owns very little. Indeed, over one-third of the world's wealth is owned by the richest percent, highlighting the issue of global inequality. Furthermore, looking at wealth distribution among the world's billionaires, only 18 persons had fortunes of 50 billion U.S. dollars or more. However, billionaires with fortunes between two and five billion U.S. dollars had the highest combined wealth in 2023.The “self-made” billionaire myth
The common narrative about “self-made” is that in opposition to billionaires who inherited their fortune, “self-made” billionaires came from nothing and earned their wealth by themselves, working harder than others. However, this narrative fails to take into consideration systemic inequalities. Indeed, most of today's billionaires benefited from their family wealth, privilege, and social connections to start their businesses. And then, their businesses were largely supported by labor exploitation, tax loopholes, and government subsidies.
