How Billionaires Stay Hidden from the Forbes List (2024)

FAQs

How Billionaires Stay Hidden from the Forbes List? ›

While some billionaires happily share their financial details, others take a more secretive approach. They use clever financial tricks, move their money around, and even create new tax strategies. These tactics make it hard to pinpoint their actual wealth, resulting in Forbes having to make educated guesses.

Offshore bank account

It's the simplest formula in the book: Use an anonymous trust to open a bank account in a secrecy jurisdiction. Voila: You can now do business anywhere you want, without anyone being the wiser.

Forbes' World's Billionaires list is a ranking of every person on the planet with a net worth of $1 billion U.S. dollars or more as of March 8, 2024.

To tally their wealth, Forbes used stock prices and exchange rates from March 8, 2024. Bernard Arnault and his family are at number one, with a net worth of $233 billion. Arnault is head of LVMH, a luxury fashion and cosmetics conglomerate in France.

Yes. There are a lot more billionaires in the world than what is publicly known about them, because they own their companies privately and are not legally obligated to release information about their wealth.

Hiring family members. Another tactic the rich often use to shield income from taxes requires getting the family involved. If you have a business, you can use this strategy to your advantage, too, by hiring your spouse or your children and paying them a salary.

Being a billionaire takes an extreme work ethic and for many, quite a bit of patience. Billionaires are always learning and if you have the chance to ask them, they will almost always say they are the student, not the teacher. The most common traits among billionaires are work ethic and refusing to give up.

According to the tortured poets accountants department at Forbes, Swift's Eras tour made more than $1 billion in revenue. That means that touring on its own was enough to get her to this milestone. Still, all those different vinyl versions likely helped boost her numbers.

Can I pay to be on the list? No. This is an entirely editorial project.

In the U.S., it may take you $5.81 million to be in the top 1%, but it takes a minimum net worth of $30 million to be considered among the ultra-high net worth crowd. As of the end of 2023, this ultra-high net worth population is on the rise, reaching 626,000 globally, up from just over 600,000 a year earlier.

How to know if someone is a billionaire? ›

A billionaire has a net worth of at least one billion units in their native currency. Net worth is the value of a person's assets, minus the liabilities they owe. Billionaires can have a variety of assets, including cash and cash equivalents, real estate, and business and personal property.

Because a billionaire's situation is more complex than the average investor's, a wealth advisor serves as the billionaire's advocate and vets the most appropriate vendors for each situation, he adds.

Yes. The pop superstar, who reached billionaire status in October, landed on Forbes' World's Billionaires list, the business magazine shared Tuesday. Among other celeb billionaires who made the cut — including Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey and "Star Wars" creator George Lucas — Swift was ranked at No.

The Pandora Papers found that, in addition to politicians and celebrities, religious leaders, drug dealers, successful business owners, doctors and affluent people have been hiding their investments in large yachts, mega-mansions, high-end beachfront property and other hard to trace assets.

Spread your investable assets around so people can't really tell how much you have. Diversification also ensures that your wealth doesn't take a beating in case of violent downturns either. Chopping up your assets and putting them into different LLCs is one of the best ways the rich practice Stealth Wealth.

Is there a way for billionaires to keep their life and net worth private from people and magazines such as forbes and fortune? - Quora. It's not hard. You can create shell companies and trusts if you don't want people to know how rich you are.

Securities

Common types of securities include bonds, stocks and funds (mutual and exchange-traded). Funds and stocks are the bread-and-butter of investment portfolios. Billionaires use these investments to ensure their money grows steadily.

But for those in the highest income brackets, the calculus is different: People with a big home can more easily get natural light and privacy, and they don't need to worry so much about heating and cooling costs. Slowly, uncovered windows have become a status symbol.