The Top 100 Richest People in the World

It’s true that the rich are different from you and me. Not only do they have more money, but many hail from remarkably colorful backgrounds, with fierce passions and oddball interests. Some have emerged from extraordinarily humble beginnings, emigrating from impoverished countries or growing up in a tenement or an orphanage. To learn about the wealthiest people in the world, Stacker compiled net worth data from Forbes as of Aug. 27, 2020.

Many of the people on this list used their smarts and creativity to build giant technology empires, invent sophisticated online tools, transform tiny businesses into global conglomerates, expand a single shop into a global retail chain, or turn a small investment into a fortune. Others were handed their wealth by their birth, given massive unearned holdings in automobile manufacturing, luxury goods, shipping lines, tobacco, chocolates, and cheese production.

Among the top 100 richest, a noticeable number made their fortunes in China, via commercial real estate, cutting-edge pharmaceuticals, e-commerce, vats of soy sauce, or pig breeding. Others played their cards right in high finance with prescient investments and lucrative hedge funds, while still others pulled their wealth from the earth, extracting oil, gas, gold, and nickel.

It’s not uncommon for the richest people in the world to be reclusive, shuttling from one luxurious home to another by private jet, protected by walls of security and windows of dark tinted glass. Others bask in the spotlight, looking for their next high-profile conquest or sharing lessons of their experiences with avid audiences.

Keep reading to learn more about the richest people in the world and how they made their fortunes.

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Table of Contents

#100. Joseph Lau

– Net worth: $16.6 billion
– Source of wealth: real estate
– Age: 69
– Country/territory: Hong Kong

Joseph Lau was chairman of property developer Chinese Estates, and his wealth lies in Hong Kong’s real estate. A major art collector, he bought a “Mao” painting by Andy Warhol for $17.4 million and a work by Paul Gauguin for $39.2 million. In 2015 he purchased a 12-carat diamond at Sotheby’s for $49 million. He was convicted in 2014 in Macau of bribery and money laundering, but has avoided prison because Macau and Hong Kong do not have an extradition treaty.

#99. Sun Piaoyang

– Net worth: $16.7 billion
– Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals
– Age: 62
– Country/territory: China

Sun Piaoyang made his fortune transforming China’s Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine into a giant producer of anti-infection and anti-cancer medicines. He announced in January he would step down as chairman. He became head of the biopharma company three decades ago, has an impressive academic background, and is credited with being an innovator in medicine.

#98. Radhakishan Damani and family

– Net worth: $16.7 billion
– Source of wealth: retail, investments
– Age: 66
– Country/territory: India

Radhakishan Damani founded Avenue Supermarts, which controls the giant food and grocery chain DMart, with more than 200 stores throughout India. Damani, who has a reputation for savvy stock investments, is known for being extremely private, not giving interviews or attending public events. He also is known for his trademark outfit of a white shirt and white pants.

#97. Goh Cheng Liang

– Net worth: $16.9 billion
– Source of wealth: paints
– Age: 93
– Country/territory: Singapore

Goh Cheng Liang’s wealth lies in his stake in Japan’s Nippon Paint Holdings, one of the world’s biggest paint manufacturers. He started out producing paint in Singapore before partnering with Nippon in 1962. He has owned several yachts, all named White Rabbit, the latest of which has 14 guest cabins and room for a staff of 36.

#96. Ray Dalio

– Net worth: $16.9 billion
– Source of wealth: hedge funds
– Age: 71
– Country/territory: United States

In 1975, Ray Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates in New York, which has become the largest hedge fund in the world. He has written several books that lay out his principles on such topics as work, goals, and leadership. He also is a practitioner and advocate of Transcendental Meditation, and meditation courses are available to Bridgewater employees.

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#95. Li Xiting

– Net worth: $17.1 billion
– Source of wealth: medical devices
– Age: 70
– Country/territory: Singapore

Singapore’s Li Xiting is a co-founder and chief executive of Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics, which makes medical devices and equipment. He was reported to have added several billion dollars to his worth this year owing to the global demand for ventilators, a key to treatment of COVID-19. Mindray’s other products include defibrillators, imaging devices, and anesthesia machines. Li grew up in rural China, studied physics, became a visiting scholar at the University of Paris-Sud, and worked for a Chinese medical equipment company before co-founding Mindray in 1991.

#94. Robin Zeng

– Net worth: $17.2 billion
– Source of wealth: batteries
– Age: 52
– Country/territory: Hong Kong

Robin Zeng founded Contemporary Amperex Technology, a giant global manufacturer of electric batteries. Its clients include Bosch, Jaguar, Honda, Volvo, Toyota, and Volkswagen. The company is headquartered in Ningde, a coastal city that is Zeng’s hometown in China’s Fujian Province.

#93. Richard Qiangdong Liu

– Net worth: $17.2 billion
– Source of wealth: e-commerce
– Age: 46
– Country/territory: China

Richard Qiangdong Liu, in 1998, founded JD.com, a retail e-commerce giant. Liu is known to recount that he grew up so poor his family could only afford meat once or twice a year and that local villagers raised $70 for him to attend college. He also has been known to don a company uniform and help make bicycle deliveries once a year. In 2018, a Minnesota college student accused him of rape. He was arrested but quickly released, and no charges were filed. The woman later was subjected to a widespread online shame campaign.

#92. Stefan Quandt

– Net worth: $17.2 billion
– Source of wealth: BMW
– Age: 54
– Country/territory: Germany

Stefan Quandt is the largest shareholder of German luxury carmaker BMW—wealth he inherited from his father, Herbert Quandt, who rescued the company from bankruptcy and takeover in 1959. He is a deputy chairperson on BMW’s board and has separate businesses in homeopathic medicine, logistics, and solar energy.

#91. Li Yongxin and family

– Net worth: $17.2 billion
– Source of wealth: education
– Age: 44
– Country/territory: China

Li Yongxin went into the education business in 1999 and co-founded Offcn Education Technology, a Chinese company that offers applicants training for civil service exams. It trains some 2.3 million students a year in more than 300 cities in China.

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#90. Heinz Hermann Thiele and family

– Net worth: $17.4 billion
– Source of wealth: brakes
– Age: 79
– Country/territory: Germany

Heinz Hermann Thiele controls a large portion of Knorr-Bremse AG, a Munich-based manufacturer of braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles and other transportation-related equipment. He started working at Knorr-Bremse in 1969 in the patents department as a legal specialist and, in 1985, bought the firm. He has said he plans to hand control of the company to his daughter. Thiele also owns the biggest stake in Deutsche Lufthansa AG, holdings he recently increased as he helps maneuver the struggling airline’s financial rescue.

#89. Stefan Persson

– Net worth: $17.4 billion
– Source of wealth: H&M
– Age: 73
– Country/territory: Sweden

Stefan Persson holds a 36% stake in Hennes & Mauritz, an international fast-fashion retailer known as H&M that his father founded in 1947. Persson stepped down as chairman this year, handing the job to his son Karl-Johan Persson, who has been the company’s chief executive since 2009. H&M, which went public in 1974, employs 177,000 people in more than 72 countries. Persson is credited with pursuing H&M collaborations with designers, including Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Donatella Versace, Commes des Garçons, Maison Martin Margiela, and Jimmy Choo.

#88. Emmanuel Besnier

– Net worth: $17.4 billion
– Source of wealth: cheese
– Age: 50
– Country/territory: France

Emmanuel Besnier and his family own Groupe Lactalis, a French dairy manufacturer that is the largest maker of cheese in the world and also sells milk, yogurt, butter, cream, chocolate, and desserts. The company was founded by his grandfather in 1933 as a Camembert producer and expanded under his father. Besnier took over after his father’s death in 2000 and undertook several acquisitions to make Lactalis the third-largest dairy group in the world. He often is involved in pricing disputes with French dairy farmers.

#87. Klaus-Michael Kuehne

– Net worth: $17.5 billion
– Source of wealth: shipping
– Age: 83
– Country/territory: Germany

Klaus-Michael Kuehne serves as honorary chairman of Kuehne + Nagel International AG, a Swiss shipping and sea freight giant company co-founded by his grandfather in 1958. Kuehne also owns a sizable stake in Hapag-Lloyd, a German container shipping business, and a minority stake in the second-tier soccer team Hamburger SV.

#86. Jorge Paulo Lemann and family

– Net worth: $17.6 billion
– Source of wealth: beer
– Age: 81
– Country/territory: Brazil

Investment banker Jorge Paulo Lemann is a controlling shareholder in Anheuser-Busch InBev, the largest brewer in the world, and, with his business partners, has holdings in Kraft Heinz and Restaurant Brands International, the parent company of Burger King. He and his family moved to Switzerland after a kidnapping attempt on three of his children in Brazil in 1999. As a young man, he was a national tennis champion for Brazil.

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#85. Jiang Rensheng and family

– Net worth: $17.7 billion
– Source of wealth: vaccines
– Age: 67
– Country/territory: China

Jiang Rensheng is the founder of China’s Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products, a vaccine developer, manufacturer, and distributor. His worth more than doubled as of late July after the company got regulatory permission to start human trials of a potential coronavirus vaccine. Jiang was a school teacher and agricultural worker before attending college and medical school and becoming a public health official. He went on to take over a vaccine company that won a contract in 2017 from Merck to distribute the pharmaceutical giant’s human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine against cervical cancer in China.

#84. Hasso Plattner and family

– Net worth: $17.9 billion
– Source of wealth: software
– Age: 76
– Country/territory: Germany

Hasso Plattner and four co-workers from IBM founded SAP, a software company, in 1972. Formerly SAP’s chief executive, Plattner now is chairman of its supervisory board and the company’s largest shareholder. He also runs a nonprofit institute that concentrates on information technology research and education, offering software engineering degrees and free online courses and built a museum outside Berlin for his art collection.

#83. Dustin Moskovitz

– Net worth: $17.9 billion
– Source of wealth: Facebook
– Age: 36
– Country/territory: United States

Dustin Moskovitz co-founded Facebook in 2004 with his Harvard roommate Mark Zuckerberg, and he holds an estimated stake of 2%. He was Facebook’s chief technical officer and vice president of engineering before he left in 2008. With another Facebook co-founder, he launched Asana, a team productivity software company that filed plans with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year to go public. Asana provides software for synchronizing workflows, targeting deadlines, mapping progress, managing workloads, and other aspects of team productivity. Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna founded Good Ventures, a philanthropic foundation.

#82. Shiv Nadar

– Net worth: $18.0 billion
– Source of wealth: software services
– Age: 75
– Country/territory: India

Shiv Nadar is a co-founder of HCL Technologies, which started in 1976 and is now a global technology giant that offers software products, platforms, and services to business and industry. The company is known for hiring high school graduates and giving them on-the-job training. Nadar turned over the position of HCL chairman in July 2020 to his daughter. The Shiv Nadar Foundation, which he started in 1994, is philanthropy focused on providing education opportunities.

#81. James Ratcliffe

– Net worth: $18.1 billion
– Source of wealth: chemicals
– Age: 68
– Country/territory: United Kingdom

James Ratcliffe, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2018, got his start mortgaging his home to buy a chemical business in 1992. He later founded Ineos Group, a chemical giant that manufactures oil products and chemicals such as plastics and solvents. The company has remained private and expanded through acquisitions, quadrupling sales in 2005 when it took over Innovene, BP’s petrochemical business. Ratcliffe was dubbed Dr. No after a high-profile dispute with labor unions at a Scottish petrochemical plant and refinery. He and Ineos own the Swiss soccer team FC Lausanne-Sport and a professional cycling team, and built up a competitive sailing team to compete for America’s Cup.

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#80. Rupert Murdoch and family

– Net worth: $18.2 billion
– Source of wealth: newspapers, TV network
– Age: 89
– Country/territory: United States

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch began building his empire when he inherited two Australian newspapers from his father and went on to buy other papers there, in Great Britain, and in the United States. He founded the media holding company News Corp and is known for his conservative political views. Murdoch is married to his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, a former supermodel and former girlfriend of the Rolling Stones’ lead singer Mick Jagger.

#79. Thomas Peterffy

– Net worth: $18.3 billion
– Source of wealth: discount brokerage
– Age: 76
– Country/territory: United States

Hungarian-born Thomas Peterffy owns an estimated 75% of Interactive Brokers, which he founded in 1993. He remains chairman of the global automated brokerage. He also helped found the Boston Options Exchange. Peterffy owns several horses and a lavish waterfront mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., along with other luxury properties. He emigrated from Hungary at age 21, unable to speak English, and got a job doing computer programming. He designed automated stock trading formulas and bought a seat on the American Stock Exchange before launching Interactive Brokers.

#78. Michael Hartono

– Net worth: $18.4 billion
– Source of wealth: banking, tobacco
– Age: 81
– Country/territory: Indonesia

Michael Hartono’s wealth is in the Djarum Group, a conglomerate he controls with his brother Robert Budi Hartono. The brothers inherited Djarum from their father. It is a major tobacco and clove cigarette manufacturer in Indonesia and holds stakes in banking, telecommunications, electronics, real estate, and investment companies. Hartono plays professional bridge, a game he learned as a child during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia in World War II.

#77. Zhong Huijuan

– Net worth: $18.6 billion
– Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals
– Age: 60
– Country/territory: China

Zhong Huijuan is the majority shareholder and head of the Chinese drug manufacturer Hansoh Pharmaceutical, which makes anti-cancer and psychotropic drugs. Hansoh, founded by Zhong in 1995, went public in 2019. She is a former middle school chemistry teacher.

#76. Lee Kun-hee

– Net worth: $18.7 billion
– Source of wealth: Samsung
– Age: 78
– Country/territory: South Korea

Lee Kun-hee serves as chairman of South Korea’s Samsung Group, a conglomerate with extensive holdings in consumer electronics, smartphones, memory chips, information technology, and insurance. Samsung was founded as a trucking business in 1938 by his father, Lee Byung-Chul. In 2008 Lee Kun-hee was convicted of embezzlement and tax evasion and resigned from Samsung, but he received a presidential pardon and returned to the company. He was incapacitated by a serious heart attack in 2014. His son Lee Jae-yong, Samsung vice chairman, was indicted in September 2020 on stock manipulation, perjury, and other charges stemming from a 2015 merger. He was already convicted of bribery and corruption in 2017. Samsung is so big that it is estimated to comprise 15% of South Korea’s economy.

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#75. Gennady Timchenko

– Net worth: $18.7 billion
– Source of wealth: oil, gas
– Age: 68
– Country/territory: Russia

The wealth of Gennady Timchenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his investment company Volga Group lie in his holdings in Novatek, a giant gas company, and Sibur Holding, a petrochemical manufacturer. He also holds a large stake in a $27 billion oil production project in the Russian Arctic. He also heads KHL, Russia’s national hockey league, and is president of SKA Saint-Petersburg Hockey Club. Born in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, he lives in Geneva.

#74. Dietmar Hopp and family

– Net worth: $18.7 billion
– Source of wealth: software
– Age: 80
– Country/territory: Germany

Dietmar Hopp co-founded the software company SAP, which stands for Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing, in 1972 with four former IBM colleagues. He transferred most of his SAP holdings to his philanthropic foundation, Dietmar Hopp Stiftung, in 1996. Along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he is a lead investor in a German vaccine development company, CureVac. He also invested heavily in the German soccer club TSG 1899 Hoffenheim but drew ire from fans when he got an exemption from a rule prohibiting one investor from taking a majority stake in a club.

#73. Stephen Schwarzman

– Net worth: $18.8 billion
– Source of wealth: investments
– Age: 73
– Country/territory: United States

Stephen Schwarzman is chairman and chief executive of Blackstone, a private equity firm he co-founded in 1985. One of the world’s biggest investment firms, Blackstone has $564 billion in assets under management. Schwarzman donated $350 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to set up the Schwarzman College of Computing and $150 million to Yale University for the Schwarzman Center, a space for student programs and the arts. He also launched a program called Schwarzman Scholars for students to study in China. He published a book, “What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence,” in 2019.

#72. Petr Kellner

– Net worth: $18.9 billion
– Source of wealth: finance, telecommunications
– Age: 56
– Country/territory: Czechia

The richest man in the Czech Republic, Petr Kellner and two partners founded investment firm PPF—Prvni Privatizacni Fond—in 1991 after the fall of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. PPF has vast global interests in banking, real estate, insurance, consumer finance, gold, and telecommunications.

#71. R. Budi Hartono

– Net worth: $19.2 billion
– Source of wealth: banking, tobacco
– Age: 80
– Country/territory: Indonesia

Robert Budi Hartono and his brother Michael Hartono inherited Djarum Group, a tobacco company, from their father. With it, they became the largest shareholders in Bank Central Asia, the biggest bank in Indonesia. Djarum Group produces almost a fifth of the cigarettes in Indonesia, the fifth-largest cigarette market in the world.

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#70. Alexey Mordashov and family

– Net worth: $19.3 billion
– Source of wealth: steel, investments
– Age: 55
– Country/territory: Russia

Alexey Mordashov holds a majority stake in Severstal, a giant steel company, where he was chief executive for 19 years. He started out buying shares in the company when he was a steel plant worker. He also has a majority stake in Lenta Ltd., a Russian chain of supermarkets, a significant stake in the travel and tourism company TUI Group, and holdings in other industries, including transportation, coal, and telecommunications.

#69. Leonard Lauder

– Net worth: $19.4 billion
– Source of wealth: Estee Lauder
– Age: 83
– Country/territory: United States

Leonard Lauder is chairman emeritus of Estee Lauder, the cosmetics company started by his mother in 1946. As chief executive, he oversaw the launch of brands such as Clinique and the acquisition of brands including Bobbi Brown and Aveda. He also is chairman emeritus of the Whitney Museum of American Art, which named its new downtown Manhattan building after him. His first wife, Evelyn, died in 2011, and in 2015, he married Judy Glickman, a widely recognized photographer. Publication of Lauder’s memoir, “The Company I Keep: My Life in Beauty,” is scheduled for November 2020.

#68. Vagit Alekperov

– Net worth: $19.4 billion
– Source of wealth: oil
– Age: 70
– Country/territory: Russia

Vagit Alekperov started Lukoil, the largest independent oil company in Russia, in 1991, and he owns almost a quarter of it. Lukoil produces oil and gas, mostly in Western Siberia, transports its product through pipelines and ships, and operates refineries and fuel stations in Russia and the United States. Alekperov graduated from the Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute, worked as an oil rig worker in Azerbaijan and Western Siberia, and was a Soviet deputy minister of the oil and gas industry. He and a partner own a Dutch shipyard, Heesen Yachts.

#67. Pierre Omidyar

– Net worth: $19.5 billion
– Source of wealth: eBay, PayPal
– Age: 53
– Country/territory: United States

Pierre Omidyar started eBay, the online auction marketplace, in 1995. Seven years later, eBay bought PayPal, the online payment company, which spun off into a separate company in 2014. After eBay went public in 1998, Omidyar and his wife started the Omidyar Foundation, which supports nonprofit organizations and endeavors, and Omidyar Network, which invests in for-profit companies. Omidyar, who was born in France, lives in Hawaii.

#66. Lei Jun

– Net worth: $19.9 billion
– Source of wealth: smartphones
– Age: 51
– Country/territory: China

Lei Jun is chairman of smartphone maker Xiaomi, which he co-founded in 2010. It went public in Hong Kong in 2018. In 2000, he started Joyo.com, an online retailer he sold to Amazon four years later for $75 million. He has invested in a number of startups and also is chairman of the mobile browser UCWeb.

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#65. Reinhold Wuerth and family

– Net worth: $19.9 billion
– Source of wealth: fasteners
– Age: 85
– Country/territory: Germany

Reinhold Wuerth built Wuerth Group from his father’s screw business, which he joined at age 14 in 1949. He took over the business at age 19 when his father died. Wuerth Group makes assembly and fastening supplies, with global sales of more than $15 billion. His daughter Bettina Wuerth has run the company since he retired from day-to-day operations in 1994. Wuerth has an art collection with some 17,500 works.

#64. Zhang Yong

– Net worth: $20.8 billion
– Source of wealth: restaurants
– Age: 50
– Country/territory: Singapore

Zhang Yong is chief executive and co-founder of Haidilao International Holding, the parent company of Beijing-based Hai Di Lao hotpot restaurants. The chain of more than 300 locations in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan serves a boiling broth for cooking noodles, meat, and vegetables. In its initial public offering in 2018, Haidilao raised almost $1 billion. Zhang dropped out of high school to become a welder at a government tractor factory, which he quit to start a tiny restaurant in 1994. He says he often slept in the restaurant in a cot. Specializing in customer service, Hai Di Lao restaurants sometimes offer manicures and shoe polishing services for free to waiting customers. Hai Di Lao also offers managers a share of the profits as an incentive.

#63. Laurene Powell Jobs and family

– Net worth: $20.8 billion
– Source of wealth: Apple, Disney
– Age: 57
– Country/territory: United States

Laurene Powell Jobs inherited her wealth after the death of her husband, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, in 2011. Three years ago, she purchased stakes in professional basketball’s Washington Wizards and Mystics and in hockey’s Washington Capitals. She launched the investment and philanthropic Emerson Collective in 2004.

#62. Leonardo Del Vecchio and family

– Net worth: $21.0 billion
– Source of wealth: eyeglasses
– Age: 85
– Country/territory: Italy

Leonardo Del Vecchio started eyewear company Luxottica when he was 25 years old. The company expanded with acquisitions like Sunglass Hut and Ray-Ban and made its first fashion licensing deal with Giorgio Armani. With a merger two years ago with France’s Essilor, EssilorLuxottica became the world’s largest eyeglass maker. Del Vecchio came from a family so poor that he was sent to an orphanage at age seven because his widowed mother could not care for her children. He became an apprentice as a teenager and later founded his own workshop in northern Italy.

#61. Wang Xing

– Net worth: $21.2 billion
– Source of wealth: e-commerce
– Age: 41
– Country/territory: China

Tech entrepreneur Wang Xing is co-chairman of Meituan Dianping, the biggest e-commerce platform in China. Meituan Dianping was created by the 2015 merger of Meituan, modeled after Groupon, and Dianping.com, modeled after Yelp. Wang previously launched startups modeled after Twitter and Facebook.

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#60. Theo Albrecht Jr and family

– Net worth: $21.2 billion
– Source of wealth: Aldi, Trader Joe’s
– Age: 70
– Country/territory: Germany

Theo Albrecht Jr. and other family members inherited the Aldi supermarket chain that began as a small grocery store in Essen in 1913. The name Aldi is short for Albrecht discount, and the company grew in the years following World War II. A family trust bought U.S.-based supermarket chain Trader Joe’s in 1971.

#59. Zhang Zhidong

– Net worth: $21.5 billion
– Source of wealth: internet media
– Age: 49
– Country/territory: China

Zhang Zhidong, also known as Tony Zhang, co-founded the social media and gaming giant Tencent Holdings in 1998 with four partners. He retired as its chief technology officer and executive director in 2014. Tencent’s holdings include the WeChat messaging app, which has almost 1.2 billion users as of 2019, and a share in the Spotify music-streaming app.

#58. Leonid Mikhelson

– Net worth: $21.7 billion
– Source of wealth: gas, chemicals
– Age: 65
– Country/territory: Russia

Leonid Mikhelson started out as a construction foreman on a gas pipeline project in Siberia and today heads Novatek, which produces about 10% of Russia’s natural gas. He is Novatek’s largest shareholder, with a 25% stake. He also owns a sizable stake in Silbur, a petrochemical company, and his business partner in both companies is Gennady Timchenko, a businessman with ties to President Vladimir Putin. After working in pipeline construction, Mikhelson built an oil and gas investment company in 1994.

#57. Vladimir Lisin

– Net worth: $22.2 billion
– Source of wealth: steel, transport
– Age: 64
– Country/territory: Russia

As a young man, Vladimir Lisin was an electrical fitter in a Siberian coal mine, and later a steelworker. He is now chairman of NLMK Group, Russia’s biggest steel products manufacturer. He also owns the country’s biggest freight rail operator as well as port facilities and shipping companies. He built a giant shooting range complex north of Moscow and heads up several shooting organizations.

#56. Joseph Safra

– Net worth: $22.7 billion
– Source of wealth: banking
– Age: 82
– Country/territory: Brazil

Joseph Safra owns Brazil’s Banco Safra and the Swiss bank J. Safra Sarasin as well as half of the Chiquita Brands International banana company. The Syrian-born Safra also owns the skyscraper in London known as the Gherkin, which he bought for $1.1 billion. His security detail is trained by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. His brother Edmond Safra was killed in a fire in 1999 in his Monaco apartment, and a private nurse confessed to arson in the high-profile case.

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#55. Vladimir Potanin

– Net worth: $23.3 billion
– Source of wealth: metals
– Age: 59
– Country/territory: Russia

Vladimir Potanin originally bought shares in Norilsk Nickel and now owns more than a third of the metals giant. He is credited with devising Russia’s so-called loans-for-shares program, under which banks and businesses loaned money to the government, secured by the state-owned natural resource companies. When the government could not repay, the lenders got extensive assets in the natural resource companies. Potanin also has holdings in pharmaceutical company Petrovax Pharm and a Russian ski resort, Rosa Khutor. He was a deputy prime minister to Russian President Boris Yeltsin and has ties to President Vladimir Putin.

#54. Susanne Klatten

– Net worth: $23.5 billion
– Source of wealth: BMW, pharmaceuticals
– Age: 58
– Country/territory: Germany

Susanne Klatten, who holds about one-fifth of automaker BMW’s shares, inherited wealth from her father, German industrialist Herbert Quandt. She also owns Altana AG, a pharmaceutical and specialty chemicals company. In 2007, she had an extramarital affair with a Swiss businessman who defrauded her of $10 million and tried to blackmail her with the release of revealing sex tapes. The businessman was convicted of extortion and sentenced to prison for blackmail in 2009.

#53. Jim Simons

– Net worth: $23.5 billion
– Source of wealth: hedge funds
– Age: 82
– Country/territory: United States

Jim Simons was a university mathematics professor who started trading stocks in 1978 and four years later launched his quantitative hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, known as RenTech. Using math and data, he designed quantitative models to detect market fluctuations and trends and algorithms to make trading decisions. He retired in 2010. During the Vietnam war, Simons served as a codebreaker for U.S. forces.

#52. Takemitsu Takizaki

– Net worth: $23.9 billion
– Source of wealth: sensors
– Age: 75
– Country/territory: Japan

Japanese businessman Takemitsu Takizaki founded Keyence, which designs and develops electronic sensors, bar-code readers, and other components used in automated factory systems. The products are used by Toyota Motor Corp. and Toshiba Corp. Takizaki stepped down from his position as chairman in 2015 but still serves as an honorary chairman. Before Keyence, he reportedly launched two businesses that went bankrupt, making him intent on keeping the sensor company debt-free.

#51. Suleiman Kerimov and family

– Net worth: $24.2 billion
– Source of wealth: investments
– Age: 54
– Country/territory: Russia

Suleiman Kerimov’s wealth lies in a 78% stake in Polyus, Russia’s giant gold producer. A career investor, he lost billions of dollars in the 2008 recession but invested in Polyus a year later. He comes from the Russian Republic of Dagestan in the North Caucasus along the Caspian Sea, and represents the republic as a Russian senator. In 2006 he was in an automobile crash in Nice and suffered severe burns that kept him hospitalized for several months.

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#49. Alain Wertheimer

– Net worth: $24.6 billion
– Source of wealth: Chanel
– Age: 72
– Country/territory: France

French luxury brand Chanel is owned by Alain Wertheimer, who serves as its chairman, and his younger brother Gerard. Their grandfather Pierre Wertheimer founded Les Parfums Chanel in 1924 with fragrance maker Coco Chanel. During World War II, she tried to take control of the company by using a law that prohibited Jews from owning businesses. But the family, who had fled Paris, had arranged for a friend to handle their stake during the occupation to prevent such a takeover. Wertheimer owns an art collection with works by Matisse, Rousseau, and Picasso that he does not permit to be photographed or loaned out.

#49. Gerard Wertheimer

– Net worth: $24.6 billion
– Source of wealth: Chanel
– Age: 69
– Country/territory: France

Gerard Wertheimer owns the iconic fashion powerhouse Chanel with his older brother Alain. From Geneva, where he lives, the younger Wertheimer runs the luxury company’s watch division. The brothers assumed control of the company in 1996 when their father, Jacques Wertheimer, died. They also own vineyards in France and California and raise thoroughbred racehorses.

#48. Len Blavatnik

– Net worth: $26.0 billion
– Source of wealth: music, chemicals
– Age: 63
– Country/territory: United States

Business entrepreneur Len Blavatnik built his fortune in the Russian aluminum and oil industries, then shifted his sights westward and bought the Warner Music Group for $3.3 billion in 2011. His investment company, Access Industries, has holdings in the chemicals company LyondellBasell as well. Blavatnik was born in Ukraine, emigrated to the United States, and got an MBA from Harvard University before making his investments in the Soviet Union’s natural resource industries. After getting British citizenship, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his philanthropy.

#47. Li Ka-shing

– Net worth: $26.6 billion
– Source of wealth: diversified
– Age: 92
– Country/territory: Hong Kong

Li Ka-Shing left mainland China with his family as a child and got his start in 1950, opening a plastics business when he was 21 years old. He went on to build conglomerates CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. and CK Asset Holdings Ltd. About a third of his wealth consists of his investment in Zoom Video Communications Inc. that he first bought in 2013. The video conferencing app’s value has soared as employees around the world have been working from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Among private philanthropies run by wealthy individuals, his Li Ka-Shing Foundation is the second only to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

#46. Qin Yinglin and family

– Net worth: $26.7 billion
– Source of wealth: pig breeding
– Age: 55
– Country/territory: China

Qin Yinglin made his fortune in the Chinese pork market, holding the post of chairman of Muyuan Foodstuff Co. Qin and his wife hold a 60% share of the company, which he started in 1992 with 22 pigs. Today, with more than 50,000 employees, it is the largest pig breeding company in the world.

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#45. Giovanni Ferrero

– Net worth: $26.8 billion
– Source of wealth: Nutella, chocolates
– Age: 56
– Country/territory: Italy

Giovanni Ferrero inherited his family’s confectionery business, launched by his grandfather in 1946. His grandfather had concocted a sweet with molasses, hazelnut oil, and cocoa that was less expensive than chocolate for customers in war-torn Italy. With some tweaks, the sweet came to be what we know today as Nutella. The company expanded into post-war Germany, where it made candy in former Nazi munitions factories. Giovanni Ferrero and his brother Pietro ran the company as co-chief executives for 14 years, but Pietro died in 2011 of a heart attack at 47 years old. The company owns the brands Tic Tac, Kinder Joy, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, and its classic Ferrero Rocher chocolates, for which it purchases roughly a third of the world’s hazelnut crop.

#44. Pang Kang

– Net worth: $26.8 billion
– Source of wealth: soy sauce
– Age: 64
– Country/territory: China

Pang Kang derives his fortune as chairman of China’s largest soy sauce producer, Foshan Haitian Flavouring & Food. He holds about a third of the company. The company’s sauce factories date back to China’s 250-year Qing Dynasty that ended in 1911.

#43. Dietrich Mateschitz

– Net worth: $27.4 billion
– Source of wealth: Red Bull
– Age: 76
– Country/territory: Austria

Dietrich Mateschitz was a marketing executive for a consumer products company before he teamed up with Thai businessman Chaleo Yoovidhya to start Red Bull in 1987. Mateschitz owns 49% of Red Bull; Yoovidhya died in 2012. Red Bull sponsors top performers in the world of sports, where Mateschitz is no slouch. He is a pilot and a skier, and he owns RB Leipzig, a German soccer club, and two Formula One racing teams. Mateschitz also raises Trakehner horses, a historic breed from East Prussia that almost died out entirely in World War II.

#42. Lee Shau Kee

– Net worth: $27.5 billion
– Source of wealth: real estate
– Age: 92
– Country/territory: Hong Kong

Lee Shau Kee made his fortune in real estate, starting Henderson Land Development in 1976. The company has holdings in hotels, natural gas, retail, and agricultural land, as well as commercial and residential property in Hong Kong and mainland China. Lee was born in China but left for Hong Kong as a young man in 1948 on the eve of the Communist Revolution. In Hong Kong, he worked as a gold and currency trader before getting into real estate. He retired in 2019 and turned control of the company over to his two sons.

#41. Wang Wei

– Net worth: $28.5 billion
– Source of wealth: package delivery
– Age: unknown
– Country/territory: China

Wang Wei’s wealth lies in his share of more than 60% in S. F. Holding, a package delivery service in China, also known as SF Express. Wang started his delivery career in 1993, illegally transporting packages in a minivan between Hong Kong and the mainland at a time when the Chinese postal service controlled all deliveries. The company went public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2017. In 2018, it got the first license in China to begin drone deliveries.

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#40. Yang Huiyan and family

– Net worth: $28.5 billion
– Source of wealth: real estate
– Age: 39
– Country/territory: China

At age 23, Yang Huiyan inherited control of Country Garden Holdings in 2005 from her father, who founded the Chinese real estate development company in 1992. It specializes in building and managing hotels. Two years before getting her massive inheritance, she graduated from Ohio State University with a marketing and logistics degree. When the company’s share price soared in 2018, she became the nation’s youngest billionaire at age 36.

#39. He Xiangjian

– Net worth: $28.6 billion
– Source of wealth: home appliances
– Age: 78
– Country/territory: China

Chinese entrepreneur He Xiangjian first opened a bottle lid manufacturing company at age 26. In 1992, he founded the Midea Group, now a giant global appliance maker. He retired as chairman in 2012 but remains the controlling shareholder. In June, he was the target of a kidnapping attempt when men armed with explosives forced their way into his home. He was rescued after his son escaped and swam across a river to alert authorities.

#37. John Mars

– Net worth: $28.9 billion
– Source of wealth: candy, pet food
– Age: 85
– Country/territory: United States

The late Frank Mars founded Mars Inc. in 1911, and today his grandson John Mars holds a third of the candy giant. The company makes such well-known sweets as Snickers, Twix, and M&Ms. It also owns the Wrigley Co. chewing gum company and Iams pet foods. John Mars lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.