The Forbes Billionaire Index

With the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin and the crackdown on tech companies in China, there are 87 fewer billionaires in this year’s Forbe’s billionaire list, with 2,688 billionaires making the 36th-annual ranking in total.

Delving into the billionaire list, our research shows not many reports focus on the achievements of millennial billionaires in particular. According to Beresford Research, millennials in 2022 are aged 26-41, where 122 millennial billionaires made the Forbes billionaire list this year.

To understand how millennials have made their fortunes despite being so young in age, we have analysed the latest data from Forbes to assess which industry has the most millennial billionaires.

The industry with the most millennial billionaires

Our research shows technology is the industry with the most millennial billionaires, with 43 in total. The combined net worth of millennial technology billionaires reaches $239.1 billion.

The finance and investments industry has the second highest number of millennial billionaires, with 21 in total. This is followed by media and entertainment where the billionaires have a collective net worth of $85.1 billion.

Construction and engineering, and energy each have just one millennial billionaire. Interestingly, these are the two industries with the eldest millionaire billionaires.

The industries with the youngest millennial billionaires

The healthcare, and metals and mining industries have the youngest average age of millennial billionaires, at 34 years old. The millennials in these industries combined have a net worth $14.7 billion.

There are two 26 year old millennial billionaires in the Forbes 2022 billionaire list. One is Henrique Dubugras, a billionaire from Brazil who operates in the finance and investment sector, and the second is Katharina Andresen who is located in Norway.

The 10 richest millennial billionaires in the world

The richest millennial billionaire in the world is Mark Zuckerberg, with a net worth of $67.3 billion. Second to Mark is Zhang Yiming who operates in the media and entertainment industry.

Daniel Fisher, CEO at Physical Gold commented:

“Our research shows there has been a drop in billionaires making the Forbes billionaire list this year, but an increase in the number of millennial billionaires.”
New entrants to the list include Rihanna, who is credited as a ‘self-made’ billionaire, at 34 years old. Rihanna has a net worth of $1.7 billion. Her success is attributed to her cosmetics line Fenty Beauty, her lingerie company Savage x Fenty, and her career as a chart-topping musician and actress.

Mr Fisher continues; “Rihanna is an example of the importance of diversifying your portfolio. This is particularly key against a volatile market since it can reduce losses incurred. For example, investing in commodities which are in high demand during periods of economic turmoil can help investors weather the storm.

“We have seen external factors impact billionaires this year, where the number of Russian billionaires has dropped due to the war. There have also been drops in the number of billionaires from China where there has been a crackdown on technology companies. Despite this, technology remains the industry with the highest number of millionaire billionaires, with 43 making the list this year.”

Methodology for research
The millennial billionaire research was undertaken by Physical Gold through an analysis of the Forbes World’s Billionaire list, to see how many billionaires there were aged 26-41.

The results were tallied for each included industry and were thus ranked by the industries that currently have the most to least number of millennial billionaires.

For millennial billionaires who accumulated their fortune from more than one sector, they were excluded from the research so it could be a fair and definitive assessment for each included industry in the research.