Taylor Swift Makes Billionaire Debut, Joining Elon Musk In Richest List

Joining the ranks of the world's wealthiest individuals is Taylor Swift, who has entered her billionaire "era." Elon Musk, propelled by the surge in Tesla stock and SpaceX's valuation, has reclaimed his position as the world's richest person in the annual ranking of billionaires, as per Barrons. 

With a fortune of $231 billion, Musk surpassed Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos ($185 billion) and LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault ($175 billion), who held the second and third positions respectively in the 13th Hurun Global Rich Report, an annual survey conducted by China-based media and research firm Hurun. This marks Musk's third time in four years at the top of the list.

Swift made her appearance on the list with an estimated wealth of $1.2 billion, driven by her Eras Tour and earnings from re-recording her albums.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., held the fourth position with a wealth of US$158 billion. However, according to the report, Zuckerberg experienced the most significant wealth growth among all individuals on the list, as Meta shares more than doubled.

Ryan Breslow, a 30-year-old entrepreneur based in Miami and chairman of fintech platform Bolt, entered the billionaire list this year with a wealth of US$1.3 billion, making him the youngest self-made billionaire on the list. Despite the average age of billionaires being 66, there are 93 billionaires aged 40 or younger.

The list now includes 3,279 billionaires, up from 3,112 the previous year. Hurun reported a 5% increase in the number of billionaires and a 9% increase in their total wealth. These billionaires represent 2,435 companies and hail from 73 different countries.

The wealth calculations are accurate up to January 15 of the current year.

According to the report, it's the first instance where over half of the newly accumulated wealth on the list was attributed to the surge in AI technology.

"AI has been the major driver for wealth growth," Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun's chairman and chief researcher, said in a statement. "Whilst [Nvidia president] Jensen Huang has grabbed many of the headlines as Nvidia broke through the US$2 trillion mark and catapulted him into the Hurun Top 30 as a result, the billionaires behind Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Oracle and Meta have seen significant surges in their wealth as investors bet on the value generated by AI."

Despite a reduction of 155 billionaires, China retains its leading position with 814 individuals, as reported. The United States saw an increase of 109 billionaires, bringing its total to 800. India registered an addition of 84 billionaires, nearly doubling the count compared to the United Kingdom, according to the report.