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- The 500 richest people added $852 billion to their collective fortunes in the first half of this year, per Bloomberg.
- Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is the top winner as his wealth jumped by $97 billion to $233 billion.
- The billionaires’ wealth was boosted on the back of a broad market rally.
The world’s top 500 billionaires had a bumper start to 2023 thanks to a broad market rally.
These billionaires collectively added $852 billion to their fortunes in the first half of the year — or about $14 million each day during the period — according to Bloomberg’s calculations based on its Billionaires Index.
The gains mark the best half-year for all the billionaires on the index since the second half of 2020 when the markets rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic, per Bloomberg.
The S&P 500 — an index that tracks a broad range of sectors such as banks, manufacturing, tech, and retail — is up about 16.5% this year.
Tech stocks, in particular, were on a tear in the first half of 2023 on the back of the generative artificial intelligence boom. The tech-focused Nasdaq 100 is up 31% this year. The rally benefited tech tycoons Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, the biggest winners in the index this year.
Musk — the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and recently stepped down as the CEO of Twitter — saw his wealth soar by almost $97 billion through June 30, per Bloomberg. Now worth $237 billion, Musk is the world’s richest person — ahead of Frenchman Bernard Arnault, the CEO, and co-founder of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.
Musk and Arnault have been swapping positions as the world’s richest person since late 2022.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg added nearly $60 billion to his net worth this year, following a nearly 80% rise in Meta’s stock price amid the tech giant’s “year of efficiency.”
But not every billionaire saw bumper returns on their wealth.
Indian tycoon Gautam Adani’s fortune tanked by $60.2 billion this year, making him the biggest loser in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Adani’s wealth cratered after US short-seller Hindenburg Research alleged in a scathing January 24 report that the Adani Group “engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.” Adani has denied those claims.
The S&P 500 closed 0.12% higher at 4,455.59 on Monday. The Nasdaq 100 closed 0.2% higher at 15,208.69.
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