The growth in the number of billionaires over the past four decades is nothing short of extraordinary. Back in 1987, Forbes counted just 140 billionaires globally. As of 2025, that number has surged to a staggering 3,028, a 21x increase. This rise has been largely consistent, interrupted only during periods of financial turbulence. The Dot Com crash in the early 2000s and the Great Financial Crisis in 2009 triggered sharp declines, including a record 30% drop in 2009. More recently, 2022 and 2023 saw modest pullbacks in billionaire numbers, reflecting broader market volatility. But the trend remains unmistakable: billionaire status is becoming more common in an increasingly capital driven world.

While the number of billionaires has soared, their collective net worth has grown even faster. In 1987, the global billionaire club was worth a combined $295 billion. Today, their net worth has ballooned to $16.1 trillion, more than a 50x increase. The 2009 crash wiped out nearly half of billionaire wealth (-45%), but recoveries have been swift and powerful. For instance, in 2021 alone, billionaire net worth rose by a massive 64% as markets roared back from COVID lows. Even in recent years, with inflation, rate hikes, and geopolitical stress, total billionaire wealth has continued to grow, up 13% in 2024 and another 16% in 2025. It's clear that the billionaire class not only survives economic storms, it often thrives in their aftermath.

Tracking the richest person in the world each year offers a fascinating glimpse into broader economic and technological trends. The late 1980s and early 1990s were dominated by Japanese real estate moguls like Yoshiaki Tsutsumi and Taikichiro Mori, reflecting Japan's then-surging property boom. But by the mid-1990s, Bill Gates took over and stayed on top for 13 out of 14 years, riding the explosive growth of Microsoft and the personal computing revolution.

The 2010s saw Carlos Slim ascend amid the rise of telecom and infrastructure in emerging markets. But the real shift came with the tech titans of the 2010s and 2020s: Jeff Bezos led the way during Amazon’s global expansion, and Elon Musk rocketed to the top during the EV and space boom, now commanding a mind-bending $342 billion fortune. The occasional lead by Bernard Arnault, representing luxury goods via LVMH, shows how wealth today isn't just tech-driven, it’s increasingly global, diversified, and tied to brand power, scale, and platforms.

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