The Top 10 richest of the ridiculously rich people in the world hold a staggering £466 billion in wealth, according to a new tally by financial research firm Wealth-X. They were joined by 2,463 other global billionaires in 2015—that's a 6.4 percent increase in billionaires from 2014—and all together, the elite group is worth an estimated £6 trillion.
Although six of the top 10 billionaires made their money in tech, the technology industry ranked sixth in generating the most billionaires overall—finance was first, then industrial conglomerates, reports The New York Times. As the Times notes, getting into the right industry at the right time is important. Right now, that would mean finance or tech. Or, simply move to Asia, where a billionaire is supposedly made every three days. Or, inherit a boatload of money: 31 percent of the billionaires used their inheritances to build billions.
In the U.S., the top billionaires enjoy a sort of mythical, celebrity status: Bill Gates led the list with $89.3 billion, and Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Page all made the top 10. And mostly, their outward appearances are that of decent dudes trying to do good deeds with their money.
But jump down the list, and you get more obscure names, plus billionaires whose fan clubs include Trump and his administration. Vincent Viola was nominated by Trump to be secretary of the Army (he withdrew) and Wilbur L. Ross, the pick for commerce secretary, is the richest billionaire to get a Trump nomination. And then there's Trump, who might be worth billions himself. But that we'll never know.
