Musk, Zuckerberg and the Russian oligarchs became even richer

Unlike the large number of people struggling to provide food for the holidays due to the cost of living crisis, most American billionaires and Russian oligarchs are celebrating the holidays richer than ever.

As reported by the British "Guardian", this applies to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, but also to a group of Russian oligarchs who, at least on paper, managed to increase their wealth by resisting the influence of economic sanctions. Out of the 50 richest people in the world, 12 of them lost money in 2023, while the rest increased their wealth, the "Guardian" reports the results of the Bloomberg agency's research.

Musk topped the table with an estimated net worth of $235 billion, Bloomberg data showed. Although his stake in social platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has fallen by more than half in value, revenues from his more profitable company Tesla have made up for it.

Shares in the electric car company have more than doubled this year, giving it a theoretical market value of nearly $816 billion, boosting Musk's total wealth by nearly $98 billion. That sum is greater than the annual GDP of Angola, the "Guardian" points out.

The data showed that one of the winners was Musk's rival Mark Zuckerberg, who he was supposed to fight in a cage earlier this year, before they both called it off. The Facebook founder's fortune jumped 184%, from $45 billion to $128 billion, while the value of the social network's parent company, Meta, increased 172% over the year.

During the past year, the owner of the Indonesian conglomerate Prajogo Pangestu increased his wealth the most, sevenfold, thanks to a large investment in geothermal energy, which launched him among the 50 richest people in the world with assets of 31,5 billion dollars.

The list of billionaires is dominated by Americans. Of the ten richest people in the world, Frenchman Bernard Arnault is the only representative of the rest of the world with a fortune estimated at 179 billion dollars.

From France also comes the richest woman in the world, the heiress of the "L'Oréal" cosmetics empire, Françoise Betancourt Meyers, who is in 12th place after her wealth increased by 316 million this year and now amounts to 99,1 billion.

Many of the Russians affected by the sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine have only become richer, which calls into question the effectiveness of the measures with which the US, Britain and the EU have tried to limit their financial freedoms, the British newspaper points out.

Among those whose wealth increased are nickel tycoon Vladimir Potanin who earned almost two billion dollars and now has a fortune of 30,6 billion, telecommunications and metal magnate Alisher Usmanov who profited 1,88 billion and has 20,3 billion and industrialist Alexei Mordasov, who is richer by 1,3 billion and now has about 20 billion dollars.

Due to financial restrictions, some of these assets of the Russian oligarchs are not liquid: Mordashov's share in the German tour operator "Tui" is frozen, which means that he cannot sell his shares or take dividends.