The list of the world’s richest people is topped by names familiar to most who exist even tangentially in the technology, financial or entertainment spaces: there’s tech magnate-turned-political adviser Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, the legendary Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and the two founders of Google, among a laundry list of others.
But beneath the expected names, Forbes’ list of the richest people in the world contains dozens of Canadians, including a group of publishing heirs, tech disrupters and entrepreneurs.
The richest Canadian, per Forbes, is ex-Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, whose net worth clocks in at $62.9 billion, good enough for 24th in the world.
Born in China, Zhao, who’s now in his late 40s, moved to Vancouver and attended McGill University before developing trading software and establishing an IT and business consultancy that “went on to count Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse as clients,” according to Maclean’s.
In 2024, Zhao spent four months in prison and paid a $50 million fine for “failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program,” Forbes wrote.
Zhao “chose growth and personal wealth over following financial regulations aimed at stopping the laundering of criminal cash” during his tenure at the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, the U.S. Department of Justice said in 2023.
There are no other Canadians in the top 100, but Thompson Reuters heir Sherry Brydson ($16.7 billion, 125th), computer scientist David Cheriton ($14.3 billion, 163th) and Alibaba co-founder Joseph Tsai ($12.1 billion, 195th) cracked the top 200.
Tobi Lutke of Shopify fame ($8.9 billion, 337th) and Lululemon founder Chip Wilson ($6.8 billion, 498th) also make an appearance on the list, as do Mattamy Homes founder Peter Gilgan ($6.4 billion, 540th), White Claw creator Anthony von Mandl ($5.7 billion, 620th), Uber co-founder Garrett Camp ($5 billion, 717th), Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment chairman Larry Tanenbaum ($2.8 billion, 1305th) and Grammarly co-founders Max Lytvyn and Alex Shevchenko ($1.9 billion, 1850th).
Overall, the United States leads the way with “a record” 902 billionaires, while China (516) and India (205) also made a dent in the global rankings.
The youngest billionaires on the list are German pharmaceutical heir Johannes von Baumbach (19 years old, 650th richest), eyeglasses heir Clemente Del Vecchio (20, 512th) and WEG shareholder Lívia Voigt de Assis of Brazil (20, 2623rd), while the oldest billionaire is the American insurance businessman George Joseph (103, 1850th).
Forbes’ list notes that the total net worth of the 3,028 billionaires is a staggering $16.1 trillion, which the magazine says is “nearly $2 trillion” higher from last year.
“Not only are there more of them, but they’re richer than ever,” Forbes wrote.
