25 Richest Billionaires Who Inherited their Fortunes

Ali Hassan
9 min read

In This Article:

In this article, we will look at the 25 richest billionaires who inherited their fortunes. If you want to skip our detailed analysis, you can go directly to the 5 Richest Billionaires Who Inherited their Fortunes.

Billionaires Heirs on the Rise

According to the UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report 2023, it has happened for the first time in nine editions of the report that billionaires have gathered more wealth through inheritance than entrepreneurship as the ‘great wealth transfer’ has started to pick pace. In the next 20 years, more than 1,000 billionaires will pass an estimated $5.2 trillion of their wealth to their children, as per the UBS report. The surge in billionaires passing their wealth to their children is driven by higher entrepreneurial activity over the last few decades. In 2022, around 53 heirs inherited a total wealth of $150.8 billion, surpassing the total wealth of $140.7 billion accumulated by 84 new self-made billionaires.

As we mentioned in our article about the 20 richest people in Africa in 2024, the Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region gained the most wealth, with the region’s wealth rising by 21% to $3.2 trillion in the 2022/2023 period. The total number of billionaires in the EMEA region increased from 599 in 2022 to 658 in 2023. In the last 12 months, the number of billionaires around the world have increased from 2,376 to 2,544, rising by 7% through April 6, 2023.

As the great wealth passes on, the newer generations have their own view on the legacy of the business and utilization of their wealth. Around 63% of billionaires with inherited wealth who were surveyed said that they plan to continue and expand their family business. Almost 60% of heirs expressed that they want to support future generations and 32% plan to continue donating their wealth as per pre-defined philanthropic goals. As per Forbes, the leading 400 billionaires in 2023 collectively gave away nearly $250 billion to charity, accounting for less than 6% of their combined net worth. 

Today’s heirs are more focused on major economic opportunities such as impact investing, innovative technologies, and clean-energy transformation. Around 58% of first-generation billionaires believe that their biggest challenge to take over from their heirs will be inculcating the necessary values, education, and experience. Heirs are also cautious about the global economic threats with 66% of first-generation billionaires seeing a potential US recession as their primary concern. Moreover, 62% of first-generation billionaire heirs see geopolitical tensions as the greatest economic challenge. With the advancement in technology, 65% of heirs feel generative artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the biggest commercial opportunities for operating their business in 2024. 

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