China has positioned itself as the first country in the world to exceed a thousand billionaires. According to the Hurun Rich List published Tuesday, the concrete figure stands at 1,058 great fortunes, which represents an increase of 259 compared to the previous year.
Behind the Asian giant are United States (696), India (177), Germany (141), United Kingdom (134), Switzerland (100) and Russia (85). The average age of these billionaires is 65 and 610 are new faces. According to the ranking, 2,312 saw their fortunes increase and 282 did not experience changes.
Highest increase of the decade
During the pandemic, Chinese billionaires increased their wealth by $ 1.5 trillion. This was explained by Rupert Hoogewerf, president and chief investigator of Hurun Report: “Despite the interruption caused by COVID-19, this year has seen the largest increase in wealth in the last decade.”
In addition, he noted that “the world has never seen so much wealth created in a single year”, and recalled that last year eight new billionaires were generated a week due to the Stock market boom, driven largely by “quantitative easing.”
Elon Musk, the leader
Three people totaled more than $50 billion over the past twelve months. The leader was Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, whose fortune increased by $151 billion.
Behind him, stood Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, and Colin Huang, founder of Pinduoduo, which amassed $50 billion each.