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Wealth of world’s 10 richest ballooned by US$402 billion in 2021
- The biggest gainer was Elon Musk, who started the year with a net worth of US$156 billion and ended it with around US$277 billion
- Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, enters 2022 worth US$190 billion. French luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault was the only non-US billionaire in the top 10
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It’s never a bad time to be a billionaire, but this is an especially good time to have a 10-figure bank statement.
The 10 richest people in the world added US$402 billion to their already enormous fortunes in 2021. The biggest gainer was Elon Musk, who started the year with a net worth of US$156 billion and ended it with around US$277 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The Tesla founder said he’s planning to pay more than US$11 billion in taxes.
Musk’s US$121 billion gain was smaller than the $140 billion he made in 2020, but was more than enough to make him the richest person alive by a long shot.
He has been spending part of that fortune on his rocket hobby. SpaceX, the private rocket company he founded in 2002, has already launched more than 1,600 satellites, including a recent launch on December 18.
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His closest competitor and fellow rocket-building billionaire, Jeff Bezos, will enter 2022 worth US$190 billion. That’s a mere US$4.5 billion gain since this time last year.
The 57-year-old, who stepped down from his CEO role at Amazon in July, now spends most of his free time holidaying with girlfriend Lauren Sánchez. They were spotted on a yacht in high-end Caribbean tourist hotspot St. Barts over Christmas.
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