Total Wealth of World’s Billionaires Has Fallen to $12.7tn, Says Forbes

THE GUARDIAN: Number of billionaires worldwide falls by 329 amid Russian sanctions, according to Forbes

The total wealth of the world’s billionaires has dipped from a record high last year amid a drop in global stock markets since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the planet’s richest people still holding a combined $12.7tn (£9.7tn) in assets.

According to the annual Forbes magazine ranking of the world richest people, the number of billionaires worldwide fell by 329 to 2,668, with the total value of their combined assets falling slightly from $13.1tn on the 2021 list.

It said that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – and the avalanche of sanctions that followed – sent the Russian stock market and the rouble plummeting, resulting in 34 fewer Russian billionaires on the list. Those from the country with billionaire status almost all saw their fortunes stagnate or decline, with their total wealth dropping by more than $260bn compared with a year earlier.

Forbes said the decline in the total number of billionaires from 2,755 to 2,668 was the largest since the 2009 financial crisis, but followed an increase of more than 600 in 2021 when global stock bounced back from pandemic lows.

Elon Musk, the maverick boss of Tesla and SpaceX, was named the world’s richest man for the first time with a $219bn fortune, up $68bn on the previous year because of the carmaker’s soaring share price.

Musk leapfrogged Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, whose fortune dropped to $171bn after a small decline in the company’s share price and donations to charity. Bezos’s estimated $1.5bn charitable gifts pale in comparison with his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott, who has given away $12.5bn to more than 1,250 organisations in less than two years. Scott, who collected a $38bn settlement in her divorce from Bezos in 2019, has fallen from the 22nd-richest person on the planet to the 30th with a $43.6bn fortune. » | Rupert Neate | Tuesday, April 5, 2022

What Is an Oligarch? Here’s What You Need to Know about Russia’s Billionaires | Forbes

Mar 17, 2022 • Russia’s original oligarchs made their fortunes in the 1990s during the chaotic aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse, as state assets were offloaded to private bidders, often in corrupt deals. During this period of market liberalization, well-to-do businessmen, former officials and plucky entrepreneurs acquired large stakes in Russian companies in oil and gas, metals and mining, railway and transportation, agricultural products and other core industries. A newer group of oligarchs became wealthy through their ties to Putin, who has ruled Russia in one form or another since 2000.

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Le chef du groupe EI dans le classement "Forbes" des personnalités les plus puissantes

L'Irakien Abou Bakr al-Baghdadi s'est autoproclamé
en juin calife des musulmans dans le monde.

LE POINT: Abou Bakr al-Baghdadi, calife autoproclamé, arrive à la 54e place. Vladimir Poutine est lui couronné devant son homologue américain Barack Obama.

Abou Bakr al-Baghdadi, le chef autoproclamé du groupe État islamique, apparaît pour la première fois au classement annuel des personnalités les plus puissantes du magazine américain Forbes. Le président russe Vladimir Poutine a été couronné pour la seconde année devant Barack Obama. L'Irakien Abou Bakr al-Baghdadi, qui s'est autoproclamé en juin calife des musulmans dans le monde, et a pris depuis 2010 la direction des djihadistes de l'EI qui contrôlent de vastes pans de territoires en Irak et en Syrie, arrive à la 54e place de ce classement. Les États-Unis, en guerre contre l'EI depuis début août, ont offert 10 millions de dollars pour sa capture. » | Source AFP | mercredi 05 novembre 2014

Forbes 2013: Vladimir Putin Unseats Barack Obama As World's Most Powerful Person

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: US president Barack Obama has been ousted from the number one spot on Forbes' list of most powerful people by Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin

The controversial Russian president batted away competition from O[Mr] bama, Bill Gates and the Pope to claim the top spot on Forbes's annual list of the world's most powerful and influential people.

Mr Putin's strengthening control in Russia has resulted in what Forbes described as a clear "shifting of individual power dynamics", while inaction over Syria and the recent government shutdown has seen Mr Obama lose his influence on the international stage.

Forbes’ judges use four criteria to determine the top leaders: How many they govern; how much money they oversee; how many spheres of influence they tout; and how actively they use their powers to influence and change the world. » | Josie Ensor | Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Perez Hilton Holds Off TechCrunch, Mashable and Twitter Founders in Web Influence List
THE TELEGRAPH: Perez Hilton, the celebrity blogger, has been named the most influential person on the internet - ahead of the founders of TechCrunch, Mashable, Twitter and Digg.

Perez Hilton. Photo: The Telegraph
Forbes magazine's fourth annual web celebrity ranking praised Hilton - real name Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr - for his "off-colour blend of humour, opinion and immature humour".

It noted that his celebrity had begun to spill over into the non-virtual world, following a fracas last year in which he was allegedly assaulted by a manager of the band Black Eyed Peas. >>> Matthew Moore | Thursday, February 04, 2010

Hillary Clinton’s Relentless Decline Continues
THE TELEGRAPH – BLOGS: Fresh from her seven nation tour of Africa – highlighted by an immensely embarrassing boogie dance in Kenya and an alligator–like snap at a defenceless Congolese student – the almost invisible secretary of state has been given a demotion in the Forbes Magazine annual list of the 100 most powerful women in the world.

Hillary Clinton has slipped eight places from 28 to 36, despite being elevated to the second most powerful position in the US government in January. How she actually achieved that drop in these circumstances would confuse even Sir Isaac Newton, but can be explained by a less than stellar performance in Foggy Bottom.

Hillary has been increasingly marginalized by the Obama team with its array of special envoys jetting across the world as well as by her own hubby who appeared like a rabbit out of a hat in Pyongyang on his own diplomatic mission two weeks ago. She looks more and more like a stern but easily flustered school teacher who’s losing control of her own class. American foreign policy under Obama is increasingly decided in the White House, not in the State Department, and has so many different tracks that it lacks any real coherence. It resembles a poorly stitched patchwork quilt rather than a carefully crafted global strategy. >>> Nile Gardiner | Thursday, August 20, 2009

Failure of Morality not Capitalism