It’s already shaping up to be a tough year for tech. The Nasdaq Technology 100 Index hasn’t been able to sustain its pandemic-fueled highs, dipping 12% in 2022. A tech selloff in China has pushed Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech Index down 20% year to date. And, like the rest of the market, tech isn’t immune to investor worries about inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Third most billionaires in tech industry
According to Forbes’ estimates, 332 billionaires made their fortunes in the tech industry, down from 365 last year. It has the third-most billionaires in the world, behind finance and investments, with 393 billionaires, and manufacturing, with 337 billionaires. Collectively, tech billionaires are worth $2.1 trillion, down from $2.5 trillion last year—though their fortunes are still higher than any other sector in the world. What hasn’t changed? Tech’s dominance on the top of the list. Six of the world’s richest people hail from tech: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Oracle founder Larry Ellison and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
The cooling stock market is certainly hurting the tech industry, but there’s another explanation that partially explains the tech billionaire decline. Forbes changed its methodology for categorizing social media moguls, shifting people like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Snapchat cofounders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy to media and entertainment instead of tech to better reflect how those companies are functioning.
Crackdown on Chinese companies
But the biggest factor impacting the most tech billionaires: a regulatory crackdown on large tech companies in Beijing, which has hammered Chinese tech moguls. Last year, nine of the top 20 tech billionaires were from China. This year, it’s only three.
Here are the top 20 richest people in tech:
Net worths are as of March 11, 2022
1. Jeff Bezos
Net worth: $171 billion
Source of wealth: Amazon
Country: U.S.
2 . Bill Gates
Net worth: $129 billion
Source of wealth: Microsoft
Country: U.S.
3 . Larry Page
Net worth: $111 billion
Source of wealth: Alphabet
Country: U.S.
4 . Sergey Brin
Net worth: $107 billion
Source of wealth: Alphabet
Country: U.S.
5. Larry Ellison
Net worth: $106 billion
Source of wealth: Oracle
Country: U.S.
6. Steve Ballmer
Net worth: $91.4 billion
Source of wealth: Microsoft
Country: U.S.
7. Michael Dell
Net worth: $55.1 billion
Source of wealth: Dell Technologies
Country: U.S.
8. MacKenzie Scott
Net worth: $43.6 billion
Source of wealth: Amazon
Country: U.S.
9. Ma Huateng
Net worth: $37.2 billion
Source of wealth: Tencent
Country: China
10. Shiv Nadar
Net worth: $28.7 billion
Source of wealth: HCL Technologies
Country: India
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Source: Forbes
