It also briefly sold a handheld flamethrower. The majority of his wealth, however, actually comes from his massive stake in Christian Dior SE, the holding company that controls His shares in Christian Dior SE, plus an additional 6. He was invited to invest in LVMH in and became the majority shareholder, chair of the board, and CEO of the company two years later. While attending Harvard University in , Bill Gates went to work alongside his childhood friend Paul Allen to develop new software for the original microcomputers.
In addition to being the largest software company in the world, Microsoft also produces its own line of personal computers, publishes books through Microsoft Press, provides email services through its Exchange server, and sells video game systems and associated peripheral devices.
Originally Microsoft's chief software architect, Gates later transitioned to the role of chair in He stepped down from both boards on March 13, In , Gates's two philanthropic organizations—the William H. Through the foundation, he has spent billions to fight polio and malaria. In , alongside Warren Buffett, Bill Gates launched the Giving Pledge, a campaign encouraging rich individuals to commit to donating the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. As Facebook began to be used at other universities, Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to focus entirely on his growing business.
Facebook is the world's largest social networking service, enabling its users to create a personal profile, connect with friends and family, join or create groups, and much more. As the website is free to use, most of the company's revenue is generated through advertising.
Meta is also host to several other brands, including photo-sharing app Instagram, which it acquired in ; cross-platform mobile messaging service WhatsApp and virtual-reality—headset producer Oculus, both acquired in ; Workplace, its enterprise-connectivity platform; Portal, its line of video-calling devices; and Novi, its digital wallet for the Diem payment system.
Their charity seeks to leverage technology to fix societal ills, such as improving the access and quality of education, reforming both the criminal justice system and the U. The most famous living value investor, Warren Buffett filed his first tax return in at age 14, declaring his earnings from his boyhood paper route.
He first bought shares in a textile company called Berkshire Hathaway in , becoming the majority shareholder by He expanded the company to insurance and other investments in Widely known as the "Oracle of Omaha," Buffett made the majority of his fortune through purchasing shares in companies with easy-to-understand business operations.
While many investors have been piling into tech companies, Buffett has opted for a more cautious approach, only buying from well-established companies that are easier to understand, such as IBM and Apple. He is also a noted Bitcoin skeptic. Outside of investing, Buffett has directed much of his wealth toward philanthropic endeavors. Buffett launched the Giving Pledge alongside Bill Gates in After dropping out of the University of Chicago in , Larry Ellison moved to California and worked as a computer programmer for several companies over the years.
First, in , he was an employee of the electronics company Ampex, where he met future partners Ed Oates and Bob Miner. Additionally, Ellison joined Tesla's board in Dec. Oracle is the second-largest software company and provides a wide variety of cloud computing programs as well as other software, such as Java and Linux, and the Oracle Exadata computing platform. The business has also grown through the acquisition of several major companies, including human resources management systems provider PeopleSoft in , customer relationship management applications provider Siebel in , enterprise infrastructure software provider BEA Systems in , and hardware-and-software developer Sun Microsystems in Ellison has spent millions in luxury real estate over the last decade, predominantly in California.
He has also donated millions of dollars to charitable causes over the years, particularly to medical research. Like several tech billionaires on this list, Larry Page's claim to fame got its start in a college dorm room. While attending Stanford University in , Page and his friend Sergey Brin came up with the idea of improving data extraction capabilities while accessing the Internet. The duo devised a new type of search engine technology they dubbed "Backrub," named after its ability to analyze "backing links.
In , Google the company expanded by purchasing YouTube, the biggest platform for user-submitted videos.
Then, saw the release of the first mobile phone utilizing the Android operating system, which was originally developed by Android Inc. Page is also a founding investor of Planetary Resources, a space exploration and asteroid-mining company. Originally established in , the company was acquired by blockchain firm ConsenSys in amid funding problems. He has also shown an interest in "flying car" companies, having invested in both Kitty Hawk and Opener.
What makes Google unique, compared to the other companies featured on this list, is that its co-founders are relatively close in terms of total wealth. In addition to software, Google also deals in a wide variety of electronic devices, including its Pixel smartphones, its Pixelbook computers and tablets, its Nest smart home devices, and its Stadia gaming platform. Fox Foundation to devise new drugs against LRRK2, one of the greatest genetic contributors to the disease. Reliance Industries was originally founded as a small textile manufacturer by Dhirubhai Ambani in Rather than moving back to the U.
In , Dhirubhai suffered a stroke and passed away. The lack of a will resulted in a feud between Mukesh and his brother Anil over how their father's empire would be distributed. Three years later, as the result of a settlement brokered by their mother, the siblings agreed to split the business, with Mukesh retaining control over refining, petrochemicals, oil and gas, and textile operations.
Forbes highlighted a total of billionaires in , including 96 outside of the US, which means that between and the number of American individuals with figure-plus fortunes grew from 15 to At this time Japan was nearing the height of an asset price bubble, during which real estate and stock market prices mushroomed.
The biggest economic bubbles of all time. In fact, Japanese billionaires dominated the top 10, filling six spots, and US billionaires didn't feature in the global round-up. In fact, it would be at least another 10 years before they would be included in the list. Other notable billionaires featured in the first full list included Swedish-born packaging tycoons Hans and Gad Rausing, Canada's Reichmann brothers and notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar pictured.
Read about billionaires at birth, the world's richest inheritors. Forbes rival Fortune released its first global Billionaires List the following year. Fortune stopped producing its annual round-up in Read about the Sultan of Brunei's sensational spending.
According to the publication, the UK had seven sterling billionaires compared to the that feature in the round-up. The world's richest royal families revealed. As mentioned Yoshiaki Tsutsumi was deemed by Forbes to be the richest individual on the planet in , a title he held onto through to Yoshiaki Tsutsumi was back on top, however, in and was placed in the number one position the following year to boot.
The wealthiest family during this period were Walmart owners the Waltons pictured. Meet the Waltons: the family behind Walmart's staggering success. The number of dollar billionaires Forbes identified around the world grew from to in the magazine found , and in the following year the number increased to , which increased to people in However, in that number dropped to , caused in part by the Gulf War.
Nevertheless, numbers recovered in to hit But this recovery didn't last long, and the first significant drop in the number of global billionaires came in This was no doubt a result of the early s recession, which impacted on the fortunes of a relatively large number of the world's richest people.
Forbes counted a total billionaires worldwide that year, down from in In the number was on the rise again, hitting , and the total wealth of the world's billionaires began to increase sharply. The following year Forbes identified people with figure-plus fortunes. For the first time since an American bagged the top spot. That year, Japan had a record 43 billionaires. Also in , the first female self-made dollar billionaire was minted when domestic mogul Martha Stewart, who had taken her eponymous company public a year earlier, hit the magic figure.
Discover more about Martha Stewart and the surprising careers celebrities had before they were famous. In the number reached a record Chronic high inflation and nightmarish bureaucracy continue to make Brazil a tough proving ground for free-marketers like the De Moraeses.
But acquiring the distribution rights to The Cosby Show and Roseanne helped him crack the harder puzzle of picking media winners for a fickle American public.
At the age of 21, Yamauchi quit college to take over the family card-game business. Begun in by his great-grandfather, the staid company needed a shot of 20th-century innovation. Yamauchi got into electronic games and today Nintendo is an obsession with young and old. Raised by his grandmother, he enjoys the quiet life with his wife and four children. DeBartolo Corp. DeBartolo started in the real estate business at age 13 preparing estimates for his stepfather, an Italian-born contractor who was unable to read English.
Today his oufit owns, both outright and jointly, close to shopping malls, a score of community shopping centers, the four-time Super Bowl champion San Francisco 49ers, and the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team. A devout workaholic, DeBartolo Sr. JOHN T.
After young chemist J. Dorrance invented a unique condensing process in the late 19th century, the resulting soup stock he peddled in ten-ounce cans made him rich. Two generations later, his heirs are still getting rich off soup stock -- but this time it's the kind traded on the Big Board. Serious intramural squabbling threatened to bring about the sale of Campbell to Quaker Oats last year, but for now the Dorrances appear steadfast about keeping the company independent.
Hearst is the nation's largest publisher of monthly magazines, with three of its better-known titles being Cosmopolitan, Esquire, and Good Housekeeping. Its newspapers have been a problem. In the past 12 months Hearst has closed the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and has been trying to buttress the flagship San Francisco Examiner, which slid Rosebud-like behind the competition. Helmuth Horton founded one of Germany's biggest department store chains, and British American Tobacco bought it in After fleeing Poland ahead of Hitler, Ernesto Koplovitz, Esther and Alicia's father, set up shop in Madrid cleaning the city's streets.
He put his profits into buying land and later developed it. In the early s, a decade after Ernesto died, his daughters married cousins, both lawyers named Alberto, who eventually took control of Conycon from their wives' godfather, Ramon Areces. But when the sisters suspected their husbands were unfaithful, they not only left ''los Albertos'' but demoted them in the company. Sergio and Geo's dad started out renting boats on Switzerland's Lake Lugano in , soon expanding into limo and motor-coach service.
A generation later, the Mantegazzas, along with associate Mario Albek, have built Globus-Cosmos into one of Europe's leading tourism firms. There was furor at the Mirror last year when a cartoon in that London newspaper bore the message ''F Maxwell'' in near- microscopic print.
Then Maxwell issued his own challenge in May when he launched a pan-European weekly called, aptly enough, The European. Czech-born Maxwell ne Jan Ludwig Hoch , whose ability to re-create himself is legendary, recently bought a stake in composer Andrew Lloyd Weber's production company, Really Useful Group. Simplot Co. Simplot dropped out of high school in the s, invested in hogs, and later sold dehydrated potatoes and onions to the government during World War II. Modest, temperate, and patriotic, ''Mr.
Spud,'' as his license plate reads, has no intention of slowing down despite his age: ''I have a ball every day! The Tisch brothers and their dad checked into the hotel business after selling the family's summer camp and eventually diversified into broadcasting, financial services, and more.
But Larry and Bob appear to be ahead on points with an eponymous hospital and school of arts. Seven children between them. Gaylord took charge at Oklahoma Publishing in as a sprig of 55 when his father, who bought the Daily Oklahoman just after the turn of the century, died at the age of From his heartland headquarters, the conservative media baron eyes the Eastern U.
He and his wife, Thelma, have four children. After a bitter seven-year court battle, Kahane claimed sweet victory last year and acquired the reluctant Veitscher Magnesitwerke, the world's largest producer of magnesite, a derivative of magnesium, for about one-fifth of its actual value.
Kahane doesn't like to overpay when it comes to taxes either. He set up his business in Zurich to avoid Austria's high tariff, but home is still Vienna. In , long before there was anything named for Donald Trump, an aggressive young builder of middle-income housing christened his development Lefrak City.
Sam LeFrak has since become the country's leading residential landlord; one in 16 New Yorkers, for instance, lives in a LeFrak- built dwelling. Though the Master Builder prefers classical, his recording outfit recently scored big in rap music, which Sam regards as ''urban poetry. Olayan started as a transportation dispatcher for Aramco, and won the respect of his employers by memorizing the names of thousands of parts.
He eventually expanded into manufacturing, financial services, and real estate. Quiet, even characterized as ''passive'' in his business dealings, he lives in Riyadh with his American- born wife, Mary. His son and three daughters are all Olayan Group directors. Too mundane for your tastes? Stern's empire also sells cheap knockoffs of expensive perfumes and carpet steamers and built 35 million square feet of office and industrial space on what was once New Jersey swampland. It's all been catnip to Leonard except for 7 Days, his weekly magazine that went belly up earlier this year.
Wed to model Allison Maher, Stern has three children from his first marriage. Annenberg came to fame and great fortune by starting TV Guide, which he built into one of the world's top-grossing magazines. Bettencourt and husband Andre control the vast fortune left them by her father, a brilliant chemist named Schuller who started a soap, paint, and cosmetics concern.
Portofino on the Pacific is Donald Bren's plan for the square miles of sumptuous, largely undeveloped Orange County land he acquired when he bought Irvine Co. With characteristic attention to detail, he even considers the reflection in the windows of his office towers. Bren is busy developing the property he calls his ''raw canvas'' into a model American community of the 21st century.
Handsome and retiring, he is twice divorced and has three children. The secretive, enigmatic Chang is now in the process of setting up a new airline, Eva Airways. The nascent carrier has already been granted landing rights in Austria, Malaysia, Vietnam, and elsewhere, and is challenging the stodgy, quasi-government-run China Airlines. Spiritually diversified as well, Chang practices Yikuantaoism -- a pastiche of several religions including Buddhism and Taoism.
Dalton Bookseller; Both Vendex and its stroke- impaired founder, Anton Dreesman, are ailing of late. The Vendex chief, a former professor of economics, made the news several years ago by hiring then quickly firing a successor whom he was told, via fictive prophecy, would sell the company out after Dreesman died.
Kamprad has developed the mail-order oufit he started at 17 into a home furnishings giant. Today, roughly one in four Europeans buy their living room and bedroom sets from IKEA, and America appears ready to acquiesce in the near future. The Swedish-born tax exile has sworn publicly that his three children will inherit little from him.
Kawamoto, a developer of residential and commercial real estate, shrugs off warnings of ubiquitously inflated land prices, saying he knows how to pick good value even in inflated markets like Tokyo and Hawaii.
A lifelong bachelor, Kawamoto plans to establish a Japanese-American student exchange foundation to compensate for never having had children of his own. Since the Koran condemns interest as usury, the Al Rahjis were not obliged to pay anything for the deposits they received from thousands of devout Muslims to invest as they saw fit. The company has gone public in the past decade, though, and must now provide a return on equity.
Baron Edmond is heir to two of the five main branches of the famous Rothschild banking family. The modest-size Banque Privee Edmond de Rothschild channels money into Rothschild's other banks scattered about the Continent. French-born Edmond lives modestly for his means, avoiding the yacht-and-polo scene. Had he not inherited the gorgeous Chateau de Pregny, he wouldn't live there.
A Brazilian national of Syrian-Jewish extraction, Safra owns banks that cater ever-so-discreetly to the world's megawealthy. Leaving his father's successful Banque Safra Freres in Lebanon in the late s, the Beirut-born billionaire went to Geneva and started what later evolved into Trade Development, Switzerland's largest private bank. The German mail-order giant founded by Grete's late husband, Gustav, suffered some reverses recently -- top-level personnel changes and measly 1.
Recovered from health problems, Schickedanz is back to supervise management, and Quelle has spruced up its catalogues, cut money-losing operations, and created a new - catalogue with Cyrillic writing that is aimed at Soviet consumers.
Rinji Shino is about as far from nouveau as riche can get. His is the 32nd generation of a family descended from the 12th-century imperial Taira clan. Shino devotes time to culture as well as business, collecting Japanese art and French furniture, and devouring novels in Spanish and French. Baron Heini, as he is known to intimates, inherited both his family's mining concern and art collection in , and has expanded both in subsequent years.
I spend it -- mainly for art. Thyssen and his Spanish fifth wife, Tita, divide their time between Switzerland and Madrid. From a bankrupt, one-ship company just 15 years ago, Carnival Cruise Lines has surfaced as the largest, best-known, and most profitable operator in the industry. In the mids the Israeli-born Arison installed a casino to complement the discotheques and nightclubs aboard his line's sole cruiser, the Mardi Gras, and Carnival has successfully pitched its cruises as entertainment -- not just travel -- ever since.
Group: Davis Entertainment Co. Just before energy prices began to dive in the s, Davis presciently sold off most of the family oil business, then struck it rich again following a takeover bid for UAL. Compared with its American counterpart, Canada's retail market is healthy. The several family members live in luxurious homes in Toronto's affluent Forest Hill district.
They have become intensely security conscious since a daughter was nearly kidnapped several years ago. CARL C. Could Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde be updated as The Carl Icahn Story? Then he sought to restructure USX, but lost the ensuing proxy battle to management. Bright and amiable, he was born in Brooklyn to parents of modest means and helped put himself through Princeton, where he majored in philosophy. Married, two children.
The Rockefeller trusts have a lot of mouths to feed -- 83 in all. The family says it isn't cashing out, but it's apparent that the dynasty created by John D. Rockefeller Sr. The sale may enhance the family's ability to continue its longstanding tradition of philanthropy, however. Jacobs formed Jacobs Suchard in when he merged his family's Bremen-based coffee company with Interfood chocolatiers.
With no announced plans for his share of that big pile of gumdrops, the German-born billionaire will continue to busy himself running Brach the U. It has been said that John Latsis became rich because he was the first European businessman to understand the Arab mind.
Indeed, after buying his first ship in , Greek-born Latsis established contact with potential customers from the Middle East by waiting hours -- days, if necessary -- to be received. Perseverance paid off: His current holdings are so vast they are called the ''galaxy'' by Genevans in the know. Latsis has been known to conduct business from his ''swimming headquarters,'' a pair of converted freighters anchored at Jiddah.
Married, three children. He also owns construction giant Grassetto -- a company he once hoped to work for. Convictions in recent years for zoning violations prompted the Paterno-born magnate to proclaim his innocence: ''I never received favors in my construction activities.
They are too difficult to obtain and I didn't need them. David Packard is still H- P's chairman, and both founders continue to be leaders in charitable giving. If asset building goes according to schedule, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation will become one of the five biggest philanthropic institutions in the country. Packard, a former U. Daniel and Manfred's grandfather was a glass cutter who expanded during World War I into selling polishing wheels and abrasives. The glittering stones produced by SIH are of such high quality that they are often likened to real gems.
This inventor of ball bearing products started his first company, Nippon Thompson, in , but only when he took THK public last year was he able to vault into the ranks of the superrich. Radio-guided calisthenics help keep Teramachi from ballooning like his bank account. Rumanian-born Botnar purchased the Swiss Nissan importing operation just before that automaker's cars began booming. From to imports of Nissan-made Datsuns more than doubled their share of the Swiss market to 5.
Though registered as a resident of Switzerland for tax purposes, Botnar spends most of his time in Britain, with a house near his company's Worthing headquarters just south of London. Duty-free shops are the salvation of passengers stuck in airports between flights.
He lives in London with his French wife and five children. No early retirement for Tamesaburo Furukawa. The oldest billionaire still serves as chairman of the film company he founded after Japan's depression, when he decided that movies were less susceptible to economic downturns than other pursuits.
Furukawa family members assist the centenarian in running Nippon, which is Japan's leading distributor of foreign flicks. Yusuke Miyama started out as a real estate agent. Today he's a substantial landlord. Recent projects include resorts at home and in Guam -- a popular vacation spot among the Japanese -- as well as hotels and sport clubs. Harry Helmsley's story is almost mythic: As a young man he started at the bottom, collecting rents in Hell's Kitchen, and later wound up at the top of New York commercial real estate.
Is she any kind of wife for a Quaker, Harry? The Stephens brothers spent the past 50 years building a small-time bond outfit into a respectably sized investment bank. Warren is living up to his genes; he has doubled revenues in the past two years. Now local folk heroes, the brothers are active in Arkansas politics.
Despite recent leverage problems, and the best wishes of his enemies, the mustachioed ''Captain Outrageous'' has flourished: TBS shares are among the hottest on Wall Street, tripling in value over the past two years. He lives modestly in Atlanta but owns a ,acre ranch called ''Flying D'' in Montana. Twice divorced, Turner has five children and is currently involved with Jane Fonda. Allen co-founded Microsoft with prep- school buddy Bill Gates in Life has been looking up ever since.
His software startup, Asymetrix, launched its first product this year, a so-called software construction set called ToolBook, and his Portland Trail Blazers made it to the NBA finals. Like his erstwhile partner Gates, Allen is single. Though he has an entire island in the Aegean to himself, Greek-born Livanos calls London home. After inheriting Greece's largest shipping fleet from his father in , he went on to become an innovator in shipping storage techniques.
Livanos has also shown great concern in environmental issues and was instrumental in forming the Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association. A self-proclaimed corporate raider, Simmons began his empire building with the purchase of a single pharmacy in After opening another 99 stores he sold out to Jack Eckerd Corp.
He took what was left and bought Valhi in a bitter bidding war. Ferrero's grandfather Pietro struck a sweet tooth when he concocted a hazelnut-based chocolate substitute that became Nutella. Michele, who took over the company at 24 after his father died of heart disease, puts in hour days, including , Saturday, and roams supermarkets to ask shoppers if they like his products, which include Tic-Tac mints. Ferrero, his wife a former employee , and two sons both employees moved to Belgium in , fearing kidnappers in their native Italy.
Gallo Winery. No other domestic vintners come close. Julio's son Robert, 56, oversees much of the day-to-day production. There are three other children between the two brothers. Equipped with a brilliant mind for technological innovation, Liebherr, German by birth, began amassing his fortune after World War II by selling an easy-to-use, transportable crane in his war-ravaged home country.
Today his company is a leading manufacturer of construction vehicles, after Caterpillar and Komatsu. Liebherr operates without benefit of desk or secretary, running the company with his five co-owning children. He has no plans to retire ''until the big vacation arrives.
Born poor, Murdock dropped out of school in the ninth grade. After a hitch in the Army during which he voraciously read biographies of great businessmen, he headed west to Phoenix to make and lose his first fortune in that city's booming postwar real estate market. He hails from the once remote desert hamlet of Al Ain where his father built both the Jahili fortress and its adjoining camel market 80 years ago.
Pao, who has four daughters to inherit his commercial holdings. Their names -- Annie, Bessie, Cissy, and Doreen -- make them sound more like extras in a Mack Sennett two-reeler than the offspring of an Asian tycoon. At his death, their experienced, well-educated husbands will no doubt take greater control of the empire they are already instrumental in running. The Pao group recently sold its In , Dr. William Upjohn and his brother devised a way to manufacture pills with an extended shelf life, and Upjohn Co.
It remained solely in family hands until it went public 32 years ago. William is an Upjohn executive VP, and Ray, the former chairman, sits on the board, though Martha, Ray's wife and the granddaughter of the founder, does not. A fugitive from Uncle Sam, Rich has wrapped up a good hunk of the world aluminum market, cutting deals with KaiserTech and the Jamaican government for bauxite.
Luxury hotels in Madrid and condos on Majorca round out the Belgian-born billionaire's portfolio, making him Rich indeed. When the Big Apple got bruised in the s, the Rudins gallantly paid their taxes early to help keep city coffers filled. Civic-minded Lewis founded the Association for a Better New York and is fond of writing letters to the New York Times scolding those who don't believe in the city's future.
Unlike some other Manhattan developers, the Rudin brothers still own virtually every building they ever put up. Back in the good old 15th- and 16th-century days, coin was easier come by -- the Thurn und Taxis clan monopolized the Hapsburg postal routes.
The ailing prince, whom his high-living wife calls ''Goldie,'' is also worried about matters of succession; his heir, Prince Albert, is only 7 years old. When he's not preoccupied with silk or rayon, Wexner concentrates on canvas, having amassed a formidable collection of contemporary art. He is a bachelor and the main woman in his life seems to be mom, Bella, who sits on the Limited's board.
This constellation of worldwide business concerns goes to great lengths to disguise its holdings. Included in the secretive galaxy: Kansas-based Garnac, thought to be the third-largest grain trader in the world.
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