The 10 most profitable billionaires of 2021

By Chase Peterson-Withorn

2021 was a great year to get rich, especially if you were already. Of the 2,660 billionaires in the world, 1,800 are richer today than they are on New Year’s Eve 2021, according to Forbes estimates. Some have added hundreds of millions of dollars to their net worth. Others have made billions.

But there is one more category: the elite elites, who have added tens of billions of dollars to their already vast fortunes in just one year. In total, the ten highest-earning billionaires in 2021 are $ 458 billion richer this year – representing more than 1/4 of the $ 1.6 trillion. dollars earned by billionaires around the world from January 1 to December 10, 2021.

Six US tycoons are included in this top-10, all from the tech industry or related fields. At the same time, the S&P 500 is up 27% and the Nasdaq is up 23% – the six US billionaires on the list, who added $ 304 billion to their fortunes, have outperformed the US market by raising their net worth. by 51%.

With many global financial markets rising year on year, four other countries (or regions) have their own big winners on the list: India, France, China and Hong Kong.

Here, then, are the 10 billionaires with the most profits in 2021, based on the data available until December 10, 2021:

1. Elon Musk

Country: USA
Net worth: $ 265.4 billion
Profits in 2021: $ 109.8 billion

What to do first for the “frantic” 2021 of Elon Musk? The head of Tesla and SpaceX resigned: he sold his villas in California and moved to a “folding, prefabricated” detached in Texas, less than 40 square meters; non-stop) memes on Twitter; confronted politicians and considered retiring. At the same time, it increased its wealth thanks to the 39% rally of Tesla, but also to the capitalization of SpaceX, which jumped. In November, he became the first person in the world to be worth $ 300 billion – even for a while. Tesla stepped down immediately after a poll posted by Musk on Twitter, in which he stated that he would proceed with the sale of part of his shares, “extinguishing” billions from his fortune. However, he closes the year with many reasons to be grateful for 2021. Musk was the highest-earning billionaire of 2020, increasing his fortune by about $ 110 billion – the largest annual profit ever recorded by Forbes. In 2021 he repeated his feat, earning about $ 110 billion for the second consecutive year and equaling his record.

2. Gautam Adani

Country: India
Net worth: $ 81.1 billion
Profits in 2021: $ 52.5 billion

Bullish investors in India have boosted their BSE SENSEX index by 23%, making the country the world’s second-largest stock market rally for 2021. The Adani Group – which operates in infrastructure, commodities, energy and in real estate – has benefited from a number of bold placements. The share of listed Adani Gas has jumped by 400% this year, the energy company Adani Transmission follows the impressive + 330% and Adani Enterprises has strengthened by 250%.

3. Larry Page

Country: USA
Net worth: $ 126.3 billion
Profits in 2021: $ 49.1 billion

The stock of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has jumped 71% this year, with the company recording strong profits, while its board approved share repurchases of up to $ 50 billion. “GOOGL is clearly the most beloved, most ‘paid’ and least controversial Megacap title on the internet,” JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth said in a note to customers. the company in 1998 – along with his fellow student and Stanford University PhD Sergey Brin – and remains a major shareholder and board member.

4. Larry Ellison

Country: USA
Net worth: $ 135.7 billion
Profits in 2021: $ 47.5 billion

Ellison has made “crazy money” in 2021 from two big placements. The software giant Oracle, of which he is a co-founder and in which he remains president and head of the Department of Technology, was strengthened by 61%. In addition, Ellison is the second largest sole shareholder of Tesla – after Elon Musk -, participating in its Board of Directors since 2018, when he bought 3 million shares of the company with a price – probably – not exceeding 1 billion. dollars. Its stake in Tesla is close to 1.5% and on December 10, 2021 it was worth over $ 15 billion.

5. Sergey Brin

Country: USA
Net worth: $ 121.7 billion
Profits in 2021: $ 46.7 billion

Brin, Google’s co-founder, has kept a relatively low profile since he and Page retired in 2019, although he remains on Alphabet’s board. It funds the “secretive” aircraft manufacturer LTA Research and Exploration as well as research to fight Parkinson’s disease, from which a member of his family suffers. In May, Brin sold shares in Alphabet for the first time since 2017, but retained a sufficient number of shares to generate billions in price jumps.

6. Bernard Arnault

Country: France
Net worth: $ 193.9 billion
Profits in 2021: $ 43 billion

In 2021, the French luxury tycoon was briefly the richest man in the world, thanks to the rise of LVMH, before being overtaken by Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Today, Arnault is No. 3 on the list, as the share of LVMH – which includes Louis Vuitton, Moët and Hennessy, as well as brands such as Fendi, Christian Dior and Givenchy – has climbed 29% in 2021 amid strong demand for its luxury products.

7. Steve Ballmer

Country: USA
Net worth: $ 107.5 billion
Profits in 2021: $ 32.3 billion

The value of the Clippers is estimated to have increased by 20% compared to 2020, however the Los Angeles basketball team was not the main source of wealth for Ballmer this year. The share of Microsoft – in which he was the 30th employee, while he was also its CEO from 2000 to 2014 – has added 57% this year, as investors “follow” the strong increase in revenue and profits of the company.

8. Zhang Yiming

Country: China
Net worth: $ 59.4 billion
Profits in 2021: $ 31.7 billion

ByteDance, founded by Zhang Yiming in 2012, has conquered the world with the TikTok social video app. The company contributed greatly to Zhang being one of the few “big winners” in China in 2021, a year in which many of his fellow tycoons left their companies and lost billions of their net worth, on the one hand because Beijing imposed regulatory restrictions in domestic industries and on the other hand because the debts of construction companies and real estate scared investors. Zhang, who owns about 22% of ByteDance, resigned as CEO in May and the presidency in November as government Internet surveillance in the country tightened.

9. Robin Zeng

Country: Hong Kong
Net worth: $ 57.6 billion
Profits in 2021: $ 26.8 billion

Shares of Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), one of the largest suppliers of batteries for electric vehicles in the world, are up 58%. CATL – which includes BMW, Volkswagen, Geely and reportedly Tesla – has focused on China’s fast-growing electric vehicle industry and recently announced plans to raise $ 9 billion to boost production. lithium ion battery. Zeng founded the company in 2011.

10. Bill Gates

Country: USA
Net worth: $ 139.2 billion
Profits in 2021: $ 18.9 billion

It was a difficult year for Bill Gates: he got a divorce and was criticized for his relationship with Geoffrey Epstein and a relationship from the past. “I confess it was a time of deep personal sadness for me,” he wrote recently on social media, assessing 2021. “Adapting to change is never easy, no matter what changes.” As for his property, however, he is doing just fine. Although he fell from the top two of the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans for the first time in 30 years, and despite the transfer of assets worth at least $ 6.2 billion to Melinda, Gates is almost 19 billion. dollars richer than it was in 2021, mainly thanks to the large returns of its portfolio, which includes shares of Microsoft and companies such as Republic Services and Berkshire Hathaway.

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