For celebrities like Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Tiger Woods, and Steven Spielberg, fame is bringing fortune.
They’re among 14 performers, athletes, and entertainment moguls―along with Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, and Michael Jordan― on the 2024 Forbes World’s Billionaires List, which the media company released this week. The annual ranking “has seen an explosion in celebrity billionaires in recent years,” Forbes said in a statement.
Topping the roster of fortunes: LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault , with an estimated net worth of US$233 billion―up from US$211 billion last year. Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk ranked second, with a US$195 billion war chest, up from US$180 billion in 2023. Just a billion dollars short of second place, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos placed third with US$194 billion, or $80 billion more than a year ago.
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Tech titans dominate the rest of the top 10, which includes Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (US$177 billion), Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison (US$141 billion), Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett (US$133 billion), Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (US$128 billion), former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (US$121 billion), Reliance Industries honcho Mukesh Ambani (US$116 billion), and Google co-founder Larry Page (US$114 billion.)
Swift made her debut on the list this year, along with 262 other “new billionaires” including shoe mogul Christian Louboutin, 19-year-old Brazilian heiress Livia Voigt, and NBA legend and entrepreneur Earvin “Magic” Johnson.
For Swift, worth an estimated US$1.2 billion, it’s the second star turn on a rich list this month. Last week, Swift made her first appearance on the 13th Hurun Global Rich Report, an annual survey from China-based media and research firm Hurun.
But the ultra wealthy had a very good year regardless of name recognition. The world now has more billionaires than ever, Forbes reported, with 2,781 in all. That adds up to 141 more than last year’s list, and 26 more than a record 2,755 billionaires set in 2021.
The richer are also richer, according to the list. Billionaires’ aggregate worth is now US$14.2 trillion, up US$2 trillion from 2023―and US$1.1 trillion above the previous record, also set in 2021, Forbes said.
A “flurry” of billionaires are getting rich through the AI “gold rush,” according to Forbes.
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“The poster child for all this is Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang ,” whose company’s stock surged 300% over the past year. Open AI CEO Sam Altman , who briefly lost control of his company last year, also made the list, owing to canny investments in his former role as head of VC firm Y Combinator.
The U.S. leads in billionaires, with a record 813 worth a total US$5.7 trillion. China ranked second, with 473 billionaires whose combined net worth is US$1.7 trillion. India set a record with 200 billionaires this year. Forbes said it calculated wealth using stock prices and currency exchange rates as of March 8. Two-thirds of the billionaires on the list emerged wealthier than a year ago; one-third have lost money.
Forbes’ list diverged from the Hurun rich list, where Musk reigned as the world’s wealthiest and Bezos and Arnault ranked second and third, respectively. The Hurun list was even richer, ranking 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.
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Continued stagflation and cost of living pressures are causing couples to think twice about starting a family, new data has revealed, with long term impacts expected
Australia is in the midst of a ‘baby recession’ with preliminary estimates showing the number of births in 2023 fell by more than four percent to the lowest level since 2006, according to KPMG. The consultancy firm says this reflects the impact of cost-of-living pressures on the feasibility of younger Australians starting a family.
KPMG estimates that 289,100 babies were born in 2023. This compares to 300,684 babies in 2022 and 309,996 in 2021, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley said weak economic growth often leads to a reduced number of births. In 2023, ABS data shows gross domestic product (GDP) fell to 1.5 percent. Despite the population growing by 2.5 percent in 2023, GDP on a per capita basis went into negative territory, down one percent over the 12 months.
“Birth rates provide insight into long-term population growth as well as the current confidence of Australian families,” said Mr Rawnsley. “We haven’t seen such a sharp drop in births in Australia since the period of economic stagflation in the 1970s, which coincided with the initial widespread adoption of the contraceptive pill.”
Mr Rawnsley said many Australian couples delayed starting a family while the pandemic played out in 2020. The number of births fell from 305,832 in 2019 to 294,369 in 2020. Then in 2021, strong employment and vast amounts of stimulus money, along with high household savings due to lockdowns, gave couples better financial means to have a baby. This led to a rebound in births.
However, the re-opening of the global economy in 2022 led to soaring inflation. By the start of 2023, the Australian consumer price index (CPI) had risen to its highest level since 1990 at 7.8 percent per annum. By that stage, the Reserve Bank had already commenced an aggressive rate-hiking strategy to fight inflation and had raised the cash rate every month between May and December 2022.
Five more rate hikes during 2023 put further pressure on couples with mortgages and put the brakes on family formation. “This combination of the pandemic and rapid economic changes explains the spike and subsequent sharp decline in birth rates we have observed over the past four years,” Mr Rawnsley said.
The impact of high costs of living on couples’ decision to have a baby is highlighted in births data for the capital cities. KPMG estimates there were 60,860 births in Sydney in 2023, down 8.6 percent from 2019. There were 56,270 births in Melbourne, down 7.3 percent. In Perth, there were 25,020 births, down 6 percent, while in Brisbane there were 30,250 births, down 4.3 percent. Canberra was the only capital city where there was no fall in the number of births in 2023 compared to 2019.
“CPI growth in Canberra has been slightly subdued compared to that in other major cities, and the economic outlook has remained strong,” Mr Rawnsley said. “This means families have not been hurting as much as those in other capital cities, and in turn, we’ve seen a stabilisation of births in the ACT.”
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.