5 Billionaires In The Top 25 You Didn't Know About

The bear market in 2022 was a rough patch for billionaires around the world. Or at least, for their balance sheets.

Last year’s annual ranking of the planet’s richest people by Forbes, featured 87 fewer people than in 2021, with the group losing a collective $400 billion on the heels of a massive drop in valuations for publicly listed companies.

Read Also: 2022 Was Never A Bear Market

Russia and China had the largest drops in billionaire headcounts due to the Ukraine/Russia conflict and the Chinese government crackdown on tech companies.

The U.S. continues to lead the pack as the country with the most billionaires. But the tech sector got hard hit in 2022, leading to huge drops in wealth for many who made their money in Silicon Valley.

Elon Musk, who led the billionaire list throughout 2022, experienced the biggest loss of wealth in history as the Tesla Inc. TSLA nosedive erased more than 66% of the company’s market cap in just one year.

After Musk’s wealth drop, the lesser-known Bernard Arnault, the chairman of luxury goods maker LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA LVMUY, rose to the top of the list as the world’s richest man in 2023.

For every Musk, there’s an Arnault. And for every Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg there are lesser-known (but equally powerful) names at the top of the billionaire’s list.

Read Also: These 3 Tech Billionaires Have Lost Nearly Half A Trillion Dollars This Year

Here are five you may not know about. The number next to the name is their ranking on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index (as of Jan. 20, 2023).

#20: Amancio Ortega

Spanish-born Amancio Ortega is the majority owner of Industria De Diseno Textil Inditex ADR IDEXY, the multinational clothing conglomerate behind the Zara brand.

The company also owns several other global fast-fashion brands including Massimo Dutti, Oysho, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius, Uterqüe and Lefties.

Ortega opened the first Zara store in 1975 after several years of climbing his way up the textile industry, where he started at age 14 as a tailor’s apprentice.

#14: Zhong Shanshan

The Chinese chair of Nongfu Spring, one of China’s largest bottled water and beverage companies, sits at the 14th spot on the billionaire list.

Zhong is also the majority shareholder in Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, a Chinese pharmaceutical company that manufactures vaccines and tests, among other biochemichal products.

#23: Zhang Yiming

The 23rd person on the list might not be as famous as Mark Zuckerberg, but his flagship product is surely taking a big share out of Instagram’s market. Zhang is the founder of ByteDance, the group behind the TikTok app, and the company’s CEO up until May 2021.

TikTok has become the hottest video app amongst Gen-Z users, but its Chinese ownership continues to make headlines for the risk it may pose to U.S. homeland security.

#8: Mukesh Ambani

With over 1.4 billion people, India represents one of the largest markets in the world and a huge cash opportunity for anybody able to dominate it.

Number eight on the list, Ambani is the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s largest multinational conglomerate, which is largely diversified into energy, petrochemicals, natural gas, retail, telecommunications, mass media and textiles.

Reliance's place in the Indian economy is so significant that the company accounts for 7% of India's total merchandise exports.

#11: Carlos Slim

Mexican businessman Carlos Slim topped the billionaire list between 2010 and 2013, before the tech boom that put Silicon Valley founders on top.

Currently at number 11, Slim started as a stock trader in the 1960s to become the head of Grupo Carso, a global conglomerate that spans across education, health care, manufacturing, transportation, real estate, mass media, energy, hospitality, entertainment, technology, retail, sports and financial services. He also owned stakes in the New York Times and America Movil.

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