The rich keep on getting richer.
Since the start of the year, the world’s 500 richest people have collectively added $852 billion to their fortune.
READ MORE: The world’s two richest men just met on a $460 billion lunch
Elon Musk – no surprise there – is the biggest winner.
Since January 1, the CEO of Tesla has managed to add $96.6 billion to his net worth.
As ever, you can blame this on the stock market (or credit, depending on your point of view).
The world’s 500 richest people made their money in a million different ways – tech, commodities, consumer products – but the one thing they have in common is they’re all deeply involved in the stock market.
Some of them run publicly traded companies while others are investors, but either way when the market goes up, their net worth goes up, and vice versa.
Last year was pretty bad for investors across the board but the stock market is now recovering.
So far in 2023, the S&P 500 is up 16 percent, while the Nasdaq 100 has risen 39 percent.
Interestingly, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is the biggest winner after Musk, with an extra $58.9 billion in his wallet since January.
Zuckerberg’s net worth nosedived after his half-botched attempt at rebranding Facebook to Meta caused the company’s stock price to crash, but Meta stock has since recovered.
Other winners include Jeff Bezos (+$47.4 billion), Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison (+$40.8 billion) and the CEO of LVMH Bernard Arnault with an extra $38.2 billion.
Obviously, where there are winners there also must be losers.
Gautam Adani, an Indian billionaire, lost over $60 billion since the start of the year.
Meanwhile, in terms of percentage, American financier Carl Icahn took the biggest hit with a 57 percent decrease since January.
Mind you, we shouldn’t feel particularly sorry for any of them because on average, according to Bloomberg, every person on the list made $14 million every single day since the start of the year.
It’s a good job Bloomberg said that, otherwise we would’ve been tempted to go get these billionaires some food stamps or something.
