R1 trillion trillionaire worth

Photo: Ujjwal Singh

Revealed: There are now 13 people worth more than R1 TRILLION

Believe it or not, more than a dozen people on this planet have at least R1 trillion in the bank – here’s our updated list of ‘rand trillionaires’.

R1 trillion trillionaire worth

Photo: Ujjwal Singh

We are looking at some truly obscene amounts of money. Following 14 months of a global pandemic, one disturbing financial trend emerged over all else – the rich have got richer. In fact, the renaissance of the dollar-billionaires ended up making a few more of them ‘rand trillionaires’, and an estimated 13 people are now worth R1 trillion OR MORE.

Thirteen people can call themselves ‘rand trillionaires’

The list features all the usual suspects, plus a few names that may not be so familiar to you. Americans dominate the rand-trillionaire alumni, accounting for nine of the 13 places up for grabs. France is the only other other country with ‘multiple citizens’ on the board, as Spain and India both lay claim to one person who breaches the trillion-rand mark.

Bill Gates, fourth on the list, could soon se his fortune decimated after announcing he’s getting a divorce – some 27 years into his marriage. However, even if he halved his current value, he would still be in the ‘SA trillionaire club’. We’ve got the full list of mega-wealthy citizens here, including Pretoria’s most famous (and now fully naturalised) son…

Who is worth R1 trillion or more?

(All data taken from the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. When compared to a similar list from Forbes, 12 of the 13 names retained rand-trillionaire status – except for Steve Ballmer, who made way for China beverage mogul Zhong Shanshan.)

  1. Jeff Bezos (USA): $193bn / R2.78 trillion
  2. Elon Musk (USA, via Pretoria…): $184bn / R2.65 trillion
  3. Bernard Arnault (France): $151bn / R2.18 trillion
  4. Bill Gates (USA): $145bn / R2.09 trillion
  5. Mark Zuckerberg (USA): $119bn / R1.71 trillion
  6. Warren Buffett (USA): $106.1bn / R1.53 trillion
  7. Larry Page (USA): $106bn / R1.52 trillion
  8. Sergey Brin (USA): $102bn / R1.47 trillion
  9. Larry Ellison (USA): $92.2bn / R1.33 trillion
  10. Steve Ballmer (USA): $89.6bn / R1.29 trillion
  11. Francoise Bettencourt Meyers (France): $81.9bn / R1.18 trillion
  12. Amancio Ortega (Spain): $75.5bn / R1.08 trillion
  13. Mukesh Ambani (India): $73.1bn / R1.05 trillion
  • All figures based on an exchange rate of $1 : R14.43, as of 15:45 on Wednesday 5 May.

Richest South Africans still some way behind…

We also looked at the only two South African residents who feature in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index’s top 500 wealthiest people – and, as it turns out, both Johann Rupert and Nicky Oppenheimer have some way to go before they upgrade themselves from billionaires to trillionaires…

Rupert is now valued at $8.7bn, or R125 billion. The luxury watch merchant and investment tycoon would need to extend his fortune eight-fold to be worth a trillion rand. Nicky Oppenheimer, with a net worth of $7.75 billion, has R111 billion in the bank. He’d need NINE TIMES as much money as he has now to become a trillionaire. Ah, rich people problems!