there are some things that only money can buy such as a membership in the hundred billion doll Club the Elite Class of billionaires who have 12 figure fortunes this year a record 14 people worldwide qualify that's up from six last year and just one in 2020 many of them struck it rich by starting tech companies as a group the planet's billionaires are 120% richer than they were a decade ago but these 14 whose wealth is up 25% over the same stretch have done much better than the average billionaire their net worths have far outpaced inflation
and the broader stock market placing them in the company of NFL franchises in terms of skyrocketing value these 14 individuals are worth $2 trillion in all meaning just 5% of the world's 2781 billionaires hold 14% of all billionaire wealth it took the bubble to create the first centa billionaire Bill Gates whose Microsoft shares briefly pushed him Beyond 11 figures in 1999 before the crash chopped his net worth nearly in half no one would come close for almost two decades even as markets soared before and after the Great Recession Jeff Bezos finally cracked the code a
new in late 2017 becoming the second 100 billionaire when Amazon rocketed towards $1 trillion in market capitalization still it took until 20121 for the hundred billion Club to expand Beyond Bezos when Elon Musk Bernard Arno and Bill Gates made the grade here are the top five richest billionaires in the world at number five is Larry Ellison a decade after stepping down as Oracle CEO Ellison is still chairman C and its largest shareholder with 40% of the company Oracle stock is up 34% and it threw off more than $1 billion pre-tax and dividends to Ellison over
the last 12 months helping make him $34 billion wealthier at number four is Mark Zuckerberg after meta's stock plunged 75% from its 2021 Peak Zuckerberg laid off almost a quarter of its staff while maintaining huge bets on AI and the metaverse shares nearly tripled over the past year making Zuck at 39 the wealthiest he has ever been at number three is Jeff Bezos the Amazon founder struck gold this year in terms of both wealth and sunshine he's $80 billion richer thanks to a 93% jump in his e-commerce Leviathan stock meanwhile he spent $150 million buying
homes on Miami's billionaire bunker Island as part of a move to Sunny tax friendly Florida after three decades in drizzly Seattle at number two is Elon Musk musk is a long way from November 2021 when he became the first person ever worth $300 billion since then he has gained and lost the world's richest title several times over as his bold bets have either taken flight or fizzled in January a Delaware judge voided his 2018 award Board of Tesla stock options worth $46 billion today Forbes has discounted the shares by 50% pending musk's appeal and at
number one is Bernard Arno the richest person in the world for the second year in a row arno's wealth grew by 10% in 2023 thanks to another record year for his luxury conglomerate lvmh which owns Louis Vuitton Christian Dior and Sephora last year the fashion giant announced $16.5 billion in net profit on $94 billion in Revenue Arno cemented his succession plan to keep family control in January when he proposed adding his sons Alexandre and frederique to lvmh's board where they would join his two eldest children Antoine and [Music] deline oh
