In 2023, the highest total wealth owned by the world's billionaires was found in North America, reaching five trillion U.S. dollars. This comes as no surprise as North America also is the world region with the highest number of billionaires. Europe was the region where the second largest amount of wealth was found in 2023.

Dataset

This dataset was created by Sahil Fatima

Released under Apache 2.0

Contents

This data package includes the underlying data and files to replicate the calculations, charts, and tables presented in The Origins of the Superrich: The Billionaire Characteristics Database, PIIE Working Paper 16-1. If you use the data, please cite as: Freund, Caroline, and Sarah Oliver. (2016). The Origins of the Superrich: The Billionaire Characteristics Database. PIIE Working Paper 16-1. Peterson Institute for International Economics.

As of March 2025, Elon Musk had a net worth valued at 328.5 billion U.S. dollars, making him the richest man in the world. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos followed in second, with Marc Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, in third. The list is dominated by Americans, and Alice Walton and Francoise Bettencourt Meyers are the only women among the 20 richest people worldwide.

According to the Hurun Global Rich List 2024, China housed the highest number of billionaires worldwide in 2024. In detail, there were 814 billionaires living in China as of January that year. By comparison, 800 billionaires resided in the United States. India, the United Kingdom, and Germany were also the homes of a significant number of billionaires that year. United States lost its first place As the founder and exporter of consumer capitalism, it is no surprise that the United States is home to a large number of billionaires. However, the United States has lost their place as the country with the most billionaires in the world to China. This rise of billionaires in China has coincided with the liberalization of its economy and successive high growth rates. However, North America still leads the way in terms of the highest number of ultra high net worth individuals – those with a net worth of more than fifty million U.S. dollars. The prominence of Europe and North America is a reflection of the higher degree of economic development in those states. However, this may also change as China and other emerging economies continue developing. Female billionaires Moreover, the small proportion of female billionaires does little to counter critics claiming the global economy is dominated by an elite comprised mainly of men. On the list of the 20 richest people in the world, only one was a woman. Moreover, recent political discourse has put a great amount of attention on the wealth held by the super-rich with the wealth distribution of the global population being heavily unequal.

As of March 2024, California was the U.S. state with most billionaires, with 197 billionaires calling the state home. New York was second, with 139 resident billionaires.

Graph and download economic data for Net Worth Held by the Top 0.1% (99.9th to 100th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBLTP1246) from Q3 1989 to Q4 2024 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

A list of billionaires and oligarchs from CIS countries, most notably the Russian Federation.

In 2023, there were around 748 billionaires in the United States. This was a slight increase from the previous year's total of 704, and a significant increase from the 66 billionaires in 1990.

Paper Abstract: Can the ultra-rich shape electoral results by controlling media outlets that openly propagate their political interests? How consumers discount slanted media coverage is a question gaining urgency as a growing number of billionaires mix ownership of major media outlets with business interests and political agendas. We study this question in the context of Israel, where billionaire Sheldon Adelson launched in 2007 Israel Hayom, a right-leaning newspaper. Handed out for free, it soon became the most widely read newspaper nationally. Utilizing local media exposure data since the launch, our analysis indicates that the newspaper exerted significant electoral influence, primarily benefiting Netanyahu and his Likud party. This shift helped bring about a sea-change in the right’s dominance of national politics. The findings highlight the immense impact the ultra-rich can exert in shaping politics through media ownership. R codes and STATA codes replicate paper and appendix. (2022-01-10)

This statistic shows a ranking of the estimated number of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) in 2020 in Asia, differentiated by country. High Net Worth Individuals are here defined as persons with investible assets of at least 1 million US$ in current exchange rate terms.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in more than 150 countries and regions worldwide. All input data are sourced from international institutions, national statistical offices, and trade associations. All data has been are processed to generate comparable datasets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

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