We look for the richest people in the car world and thanks to Forbes we succeed very well.
It's 2024 and car manufacturers are having a hard time. They have to invest heavily in new forms of propulsion (read: electric) and it is still quite difficult to make money with this.
So difficult that most brands put their good intentions aside. As if they would buy a pack of Heavy Van Nelle for 18 euros in April 2024 and start smoking again. They were doing so well.
Richest people in the car world in the Forbes Billionaires 2024
But it turns out: you can actually make money with electric cars! The list of Forbes Millionaires 2024 has just been published and at number 2 we find our EV prophet: Elon Musk! The CEO of Tesla is the second richest person on the planet.
He has an estimated net worth of $195 billion. Now the South African jack-of-all-trades has not only become rich through Tesla, Musk has even more companies that help him gain this position, such as SpaceX and The Boring Company.
First the top 4
At number 1 is Bernard Arnault (with 233 billion), the man behind LVMH, a conglomerate with all luxury brands. At number 3 is Jeff Bezos (194 billion) from Amazon and at 4 is Mark Zuckerberg, who makes money from your private life.
BMW History
Only at number 68 do we find an automotive name after Elon Musk: Stefan Quandt (27.3 billion) who owns 23.6% of the shares of BMW.
At number 71 we find Susanne Klatten with 26.5 billion. She is, er, the sister of Stefan Quandt and owns 19% of BMW's shares. It is unfairly distributed in this world.
Batteries
Then we move on to position 89 where we meet none other than Robin Zeng. That's the founder and chairman of Contemporary Amperex Technology. Doesn't sound very automotive, but this is one of the largest suppliers of batteries for EVs. Look, you can make good money with that!
Automotive giant
Then further on at place 109 we come across another automotive giant: Eric Li (16.8 billion). Li is the major shareholder of Geely Automobile Holdings, one of the larger Chinese car groups. What is special about this is that it is a company that is not largely owned by the state.
Bigger than Tesla, poorer than Musk
Another Chinese name is that of Wang Chuanfu (14.2 billion) in 131st place. That is the man behind BYD and responsible for the enormous expansion of electric cars from that brand. BYD currently sells more EVs than Tesla: 21% of all newly sold electric cars are BYD.
Kahn
Then we drop further to position 162, to Shahid Kahn (12.2 billion). This is a less familiar name to us, but in the US Flex-N-Gate (supplier) is huge and Kahn owns it.
BYD again
Well, it's a Chinese party today. In 172nd place is Lu Xiangyang (11.6 billion). Xiangyang is the cousin of the just-mentioned Wang Chuanfu and also has a significant stake in the business.
SUV builder
We'll continue with China, because Wei Jianjun is at number 180 with $11.2 billion. Juanjun is the person at the helm of Great Wall Motor, the largest Chinese manufacturer of SUVs. Yup, you can make good money with that.
And a German
We close with something German! At 195 we find Georg Schaeffler (10.9 billion). Very sweet, together with his mother he owns Schaeffler, a large company that makes ball bearings and a lot of other parts. They also manufacture the necessary parts for electric cars. The ABT racing cars in Formula E use Schaeffler technology.
You can view the complete list here!
Photo credit: epic photoshop skills by @jaapiyo
This article These are the richest people in the car world first appeared on Autoblog.nl.
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