According to Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires list, 2020 was the year that the number of world billionaires (tracked in their report’s 35th edition) saw a record 493 increase.
That’s one new billionaire minted every 17 hours. Where are these billionaires from? Unsurprisingly, around 43% (210) are from China and Hong Kong and there are 98 new billionaires from the U.S.
Source: FortuneCarvana founder Ernest Garcia III and Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel are also among the names (Carvana is the car-selling app whose TV commercials are running on CNN all the time thanks to their heavy ad spending).
Together the 2,755 billionaires on the list are worth $13.1 trillion, up from the total $8 trillion of the 2020 list.
Flashback to 1987, we only had 140 billionaires…that’s quite an increase in 33 years.
