Billionaires are booming all over the globe but the United States holds the crown for the most dynamic growth and significant wealth gains.
According to Wealth-X's 2021 billionaire census, the total number of billionaires in 2020 jumped 13,4% year over year to 3,204 individuals. The figure marks the strongest annual growth since 2017, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and deepest contraction in world economic output in a generation. Combined, their combined wealth hit $10 trillion, an increase of 5.7% year over year.
The United States is the most powerful nation for billionaire growth, accounting for 29% of the global billionaire population and 37% of cumulative wealth in 2020, followed by China with shares of about 13% and Germany with shares of about 5%.
Out of the total 3,204 individuals, 670 were new billionaires with a median wealth of $1.9 billion and $1.4 billion, respectively.
Approximately 60% of the total global billionaire population were entirely self-made in 2020 compared to 11% who made their fortunes by inheriting money and 28.8% who made their fortunes through a combination of inheritance and self-made wealth creation in 2020.
For new billionaires, roughly 70% are self-made, compared to 7.4% who inherited their fortune and 22.4% have a combination of inheritance and self-made wealth creation.
66.6% of millionaires were self-made, while 14% made their fortunes through inheritance and 19.3% made their fortunes through inheritance and self-made wealth creation.
The number of billionaires in North America alone grew by 17.5% year-over-year to 980 individuals, the equivalent to 31% global shares. Meanwhile, the collective net worth of the region's billionaires increased by 8% to $3.8 trillion, or a global share of 38%.
The total number of billionaires with wealth in the range of $10 billion to $50 billion saw the strongest growth in terms of both population and combined net worth, growing by 40% or three times faster than the growth of the global billionaire population.
The expansion was fueled by wealth generation in the automotive, technology, materials and shipping and distribution industries. In addition, the hospitality and entertainment sector gave a boost to the total number of billionaires with wealth of more than $50 billion.
However, the banking and finance sector remained the top industry for overall billionaire representation.
The top tier of 19 super billionaires registered the second-highest growth in total population size of 27% and the strongest growth in combined net worth of 9.3%. As of July 2021, the 15 richest billionaires were:
Billionaires with a net worth above $50 billion have almost two thirds of their assets in private holdings 64.1% compared to the share of around 20% of those with a net worth between 1 billion and 2 billion. As for new billionaires, the bulk of their wealth is in liquid assets 38.4% followed by private holdings 32.1% and public holdings 25.2%.