Once a fixture at ‘world’s wealth ranking,’ Warren Buffett slipped the ladder in recent years. However, the 90-year-old Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman’s wealth sprung above $100 billion for the first time on Wednesday, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Consequently, the surge makes Buffett join the exclusive $100 billion club, alongside several others.
The first five are Jeff Bezos: $180 billion, Elon Musk: $173 billion, Bill Gates: $138 billion, Bernard Arnault: $122 billion, and Mark Zuckerberg: $101 billion.
Mukesh Ambani — the only Indian in the Top 10 richest persons in the world — has been ranked at the 10th position with $84.70 billion.
Conspicuously, the $100 billion-club has seen a lot of movements in the last year, perhaps because of the record-breaking meteoric rise in the stock market.
Indicating a contrast, where Buffett perpetuated the list of wealth rank, his personal wealth has not topped $100 billion up to the point in time.
One of the rationalisations of that could be his substantial charitable donations. As per a leading global news portal, he had made contributions of more than $37 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock since 2006.
He is the co-founder of the Giving Pledge — a campaign that encourages wealthy people to contribute a majority of wealth to philanthropic causes.
Buffett’s net worth comes from the possession of one-sixth of Berkshire Hathaway, a roughly $600 billion company. It is the source of essentially all of Buffett’s wealth, which had a good start to 2021.
The shares of the firm are up 15 percent this year, surpassing $400,000 a share. The stock closed at $398,840 on March 10, 2021, at the NYSE index.
As per reports, Berkshire Hathaway was a drowning entity before Warren Buffett took controls in 1965. Today, in his presence, the conglomerate owns over 90 businesses, including the BNSF Railroad, Geico Insurance, and several major utilities. Some of its other companies are in the manufacturing, chocolate, shoes, furniture, etc., sectors.
Further, Berkshire holds major investments in Apple, Coca-Cola, American Express, and Bank of America.
