Richest people became less wealthy in 2018: total loss of 451 billion
The five hundred richest people on earth lost jointly $451 billion this year (about 394 billion euros). This is mainly due to declining stock exchanges, because companies did an excellent job, calculated news agency Bloomberg. Last year, the five hundred richest people received more than a trillion dollars.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. His assets increased by 24 billion dollars (about 20 billion euros) to 123 billion dollars (about 107 billion euros). However, Bezos also suffered from falling stock markets. In September he was worth another 45 billion dollars (about 39 billion euros). All American billionaires jointly contributed 76 billion dollars (66 billion euros). Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg alone saw his assets shrink by 20 billion dollars (17 billion euros) and now has to make 53 billion dollars (46 billion euros). Chinese billionaires lost just under 76 billion dollars (66 billion euros) together.
Gone
Fifty people disappeared from the list, including Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis. The Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska also fell off the list. His company Rusal lost a lot of value as a result of US sanctions. Thirteen billionaires died in 2018: Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, the chairman of football clubs Leicester City and Oud-Heverlee Leuven died in a helicopter accident.
Newcomers
New names on the list include the game world. Tim Sweeney benefited from the success of the Fortnite computer game and is now worth 7.2 billion dollars (6.3 billion euros). The British founder of bookmaker Bet365 Denise Coates is also new with a capital of 4.1 billion dollars (3.5 billion euros).
