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The total number of billionaires in Europe and their aggregate wealth has dropped over the past year, Forbes has found, driven by the sharp decline in the number of billionaires and their fortunes in sanction-hit Russia. Out of a global total of 2,668 billionaires worth $12.7 trillion on Forbes’ 2022 list of the World’s Billionaires, Europe accounts for 592 billionaires, down from 628 a year ago. The combined wealth of European billionaires has fallen from last year’s $3 trillion highpoint to $2.8 trillion, driven down by a single global hotspot.
The ten wealthiest European billionaires on Forbes’ 2022 list are worth a collective $590 billion, up by $38 billion in the past year. In comparison, the top ten richest U.S. billionaires are worth a total of $1.2 trillion, showing the big difference between tech when it comes to billionaire wealth at the very top. Seven of the top ten U.S. billionaires are tech tycoons who made their money in the years following the mass adoption of personal computing, the internet and social media. Europe, by comparison, has no tech billionaires in its top 10.
David Dawkins
Forbes Staff
Business