Forbes unveils the list of 2025 billionaires. Here is the top 10: NPR

Billionaires of the world are richer than ever, according to Forbes The annual list of the most richest people in the world.

The 39th annual version is now out and includes 3,028 billionaires, the most recorded by Forbes.

Forbes Editor Chase Peterson-Withorn said Morning edition The annual list of billionaires around the world has 2 dollars of wealth more only a year ago. In total, they have around 16.1 billions of dollars in wealth.

“It’s time to be a billionaire,” said Peterson-Withorn.

How does Forbes bring together this list?

Peterson-Withorn said that more than 100 journalists around the world are working on the list, painting everything, actions of listed companies, trying to enhance private companies, examining species and investments, and how billionaires could spend their money in their decrease.

“All from art and yachts and collections of cars and collections of dinosaur bones and all kinds of crazy things that billionaires have,” said Peterson-Withorn. “So it is in a way the total value of all their assets without any debt as they have.”

Some billionaires open to ForbesSaid Peterson-Withorn, but for those who do not, journalists also watch the government’s registers, legal deposits and offshore registers. They work with information leaks and intervene billionaires, managers and competitors to try to find “answers to questions that many billionaires might prefer that we do not ask”.

So who is at the top of this year’s list?

The United States has the most billionaires with 902, followed by China and Hong Kong at 516. India has the third with 205.

Here is the top 10 classified by wealth and the way they came by their fortune:

1. Elon Musk ($ 342 billion), Co-founder of Tesla and SpaceX
2. Mark Zuckerberg (216 billion dollars), co-founder of Facebook and CEO of Meta
3. Jeff Bezos ($ 215 billion), founder of Amazon
4. Larry Ellison (192 billion dollars), co-founder of the Oracle technological giant
5. Bernard Arnault and family (178 billion dollars), founder and CEO of LVMH, conglomerate of luxury products, holding brands such as Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co.
6. Buffet warren ($ 154 billion), an investor known as “Oracle of Omaha”, CEO and president of Berkshire Hathaway
7. Larry Page (144 billion dollars), co-founder of Google and former CEO of his parent company, alphabet
8. Sergey Brin ($ 138 billion), co-founder of Google and former president of Alphabet
9. Amancio Ortega (124 billion dollars), founder of the Inditex clothing retailer, which sells Zara and various other brands
10. Steve Ballmer ($ 118 billion), former CEO of Microsoft

What could the public of billionaires think these days?

Peterson-Withorn said that public attitudes have changed, noting the occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 which followed the great recession of 2008. There is also right-wing populism that helped President Trump, a billionaire himself, win two terms. Although former advisor Steve Bannon insisted for NPR earlier this year that the apparent embrace of the president’s technological billionaires was not a victory for them.

“Now we have a billionaire president who brings many billionaires to his government,” said Peterson-Withorn. “And so you can see a lot of hindsight and backlash against this. But it also depends on what side of the medal you are looking at.”

Several billionaires were used to serve in the second Trump administrationIncluding Elon Musk, the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and the Secretary of Commerce Howard Lungick.

Musk, whose work with the Special Unit of the Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government responsible for reducing public spending, attracted the anger of certain Americans on both sides of the aisle. . Tesla dealership have faced many demonstrations in recent weeksAlthough the richest man in the world does not show signs of reducing his work in the federal government.

“Many billionaires have no great reputation these days,” said Peterson-Withorn, “but on the other hand, they are more powerful than ever.”

You can Read the full list of billionaires here.