Bezos, Musk tops Forbes record list of billionaires

By Sheila Dang

April 6 (Reuters) – Forbes’ annual list of global billionaires includes a record 2,755 billionaires, with Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos leading for the fourth consecutive year, the media company said on Tuesday.

The ranks of the ultra-rich are expanding after a year in which the coronavirus pandemic has affected the world’s economies and threatened the livelihood of people across the globe.

This year’s billionaires together are worth $ 13.1 trillion, up from $ 8 trillion last year, Forbes said.

“The very, very rich have become much, much richer,” Forbes content director Randall Lane said in an interview with Reuters Video News.

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk jumped to second place on the list, up from 31st last year.

Bernard Arnault, chief executive of the luxury goods company LVMH, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg are among the world’s top five billionaires.

Investor and business tycoon Warren Buffett fell from the top five for the first time in more than two decades, as technology executives dominated the Forbes ranking.

This year’s list has 493 newcomers, including Whitney Wolfe Herd, chief executive of the dating app Bumble, which went public this year.

(Reporting by Sheila Dang, edited by Ed Osmond)

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