Rihanna, JAY-Z and Kanye West make the Forbes billionaires list

The billionaires club has 236 newcomers this year.

There are 2,668 people on this year’s ranking of Forbes Billionaires list. That’s 87 fewer people than a year ago, war, pandemic and sluggish markets being the reasons why. worth a collective $12.7 trillion—$400 billion less than in 2021. The most dramatic drops have occurred in Russia, where there are 34 fewer billionaires than last year following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and China, where a government crackdown on tech companies has led to 87 fewer Chinese billionaires on the list.

Still, Forbes found more than 1,000 billionaires who are richer than they were a year ago. And 236 newcomers have become billionaires over the past year—including the first ever from Barbados, Bulgaria, Estonia and Uruguay. Speaking of Barbados, the country’s  first billionaire, Rihanna, has earned her first entry on the billionaires list at No. 1,729 ($1.7 billion), thanks to her Fenty Beauty cosmetics line and Savage X Fenty lingerie business.

America still leads the world, with 735 billionaires worth a collective $4.7 trillion, including Elon Musk, who tops the World’s Billionaires list for the first time. Kanye West comes in at No. 1,513 on the annual list, up more than 200 spots from his place last year. His $2 billion fortune is credited largely to his lucrative Yeezy partnership with adidas as well as his 10-year deal with Gap. Hip-hop’s first billionaire, JAY-Z, is at No. 2,076. His $1.4 billion fortune includes his Roc Nation empire and the 2021 sales of his Armand de Brignac champagne to LVMH and TIDAL to Square, Inc.

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