Taylor Swift Joins Elon Musk on Global Billionaire Rankings

Elon Musk has some new company on the list of the world’s richest people: Taylor Swift, who’s now reached her billionaire “era.”

Buoyed by the rise in Tesla stock and the surge in SpaceX’s valuation, Musk has reclaimed the title of the world’s richest person in an annual ranking of billionaires.

Musk’s US$231 billion fortune catapulted him above Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos (US$185 billion) and LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault (US$175 billion), who ranked second and third, respectively, on the 13th Hurun Global Rich Report, an annual survey from China-based media and research firm Hurun. This year marked Musk’s third time in four years at the top of the roster.

Swift made her debut on the list, her wealth, estimated at US$1.2 million, propelled by her Eras Tour and royalties from re-recording her albums.

Mark Zuckerberg (US$158 billion), CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., trailed at No. 4, but added more wealth than anyone on the list, as Meta shares more than doubled, the report said.

Miami-based entrepreneur Ryan Breslow (US$1.3 billion), the 30-year-old chairman of fintech platform Bolt, entered the list this year as its youngest self-made billionaire. While 66 is the average age of billionaires on the list, 93 billionaires ranked are 40 or younger.

The list ranked 3,279 billionaires, up from 3,112 the previous year. The number of billionaires increased by 5% and their total wealth was up 9%, Hurun said in a news release. The wealthiest hail from 2,435 companies and 73 countries.

The wealth calculations are through Jan. 15 of this year.

For the first time, more than half the new wealth on the list was generated by the boom in AI, the report said.

“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 catapulting 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 losing 155 billionaires, China still claims the most, with 814, the report said. The U.S. added 109 billionaires, for a total of 800. India added 84, and now has almost double the number of billionaires as the U.K., the report said.

If there’s a billionaire capital, it’s New York, where more reside than any other city; London ranked second, and Mumbai third, edging out other locales to become Asia’s hub for billionaires.

Overall, the world’s wealthiest made their money in financial services (10%), followed by consumer goods (8%), and food & beverages (7%) and real estate (7%), Hurun said. By sector, it was a “good year” for media and entertainment, which added US$226 billion, outpacing software and services at US$149 billion, financial services at US$118 billion, and retail, at US$104 billion.

Not everyone was a winner. The report said 1,346 billionaires saw their wealth decrease; 278 of them dropped off the list, with 208 of those hailing from China.

“Wealth creation in China has gone through deep changes these last few years, with the wealth of billionaires from real estate and renewables down,” Hoogewerf said in a statement. “Whilst as many as 40% of the Hurun Global Rich List from the high water mark two years ago have lost their billionaire status, China has added 120 new faces to the list.

The report called the latest rankings a “bad year” for healthcare, where billionaires in the field shed US$75 billion; followed by industrial products, declining US$46 billion; food & beverages, losing US$40 billion; and real estate, dropping by US$32 billion.

Alibaba Group co-founder Jack Ma said competition will make the company stronger and the e-commerce giant needs to trust in the power of market forces and innovation, according to an internal memo to commemorate the company’s 25th anniversary.

“Many of Alibaba’s business face challenges and the possibility of being surpassed, but that’s to be expected as no single company can stay at the top forever in any industry,” Ma said in a letter sent to employees late Tuesday, seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Once a darling of Wall Street and the dominant player in China’s e-commerce industry, the tech giant’s growth has slowed amid a weakening Chinese economy and subdued consumer sentiment. Intensifying competition from homegrown upstarts such as PDD Holdings ’ Pinduoduo e-commerce platform and ByteDance’s short-video app Douyin has also pressured Alibaba’s growth momentum.

“Only with competition can we become stronger and allow the industry to remain healthy,” Ma said.

The letter came after Alibaba recently completed a three-year regulatory process in China.

Chinese regulators said in late August that they have completed their monitoring and evaluation of Alibaba after the company was penalized over monopolistic practices in 2021. Over the past three years, the company has been required to submit self-evaluation compliance reports to market regulators.

Ma reiterated Alibaba’s ambition of being a company that can last 102 years. He urged Alibaba’s employees to not flounder in the midst of challenges and competition.

“The reason we’re Alibaba is because we have idealistic beliefs, we trust the future, believe in the market. We believe that only a company that can create real value for society can keep operating for 102 years,” he said.

Ma himself has kept a low profile since late 2020 when financial affiliate Ant Group called off initial public offerings in Hong Kong and Shanghai that had been on track to raise more than $34 billion.

In a separate internal letter in April, he praised Alibaba’s leadership and its restructuring efforts after the company split the group into six independently run companies.

Alibaba recently completed the conversion of its Hong Kong secondary listing into a primary listing, and on Tuesday was added to a scheme allowing investors in mainland China to trade Hong Kong-listed shares.

Alibaba shares fell 1.2% to 80.60 Hong Kong dollars, or equivalent of US$10.34, by midday Wednesday, after rising 4.2% on Tuesday following the Stock Connect inclusion. The company’s shares are up 6.9% so far this year.