The pandemic has caused a surge in the top percent’s wealth from a multitude of causes, ranging from competition being shut down, to vaccine investments paying off.
Interested in those who have potentially profited from the pandemic, money.co.uk analysed Forbes’ Real Time Billionaires list for all billionaires under the age of 40, breaking them down by continent, average billionaire net worth per country, and average age of billionaires per country.
Interestingly, they found that the average wealth of billionaires under 40 is at $4,210,743,000.
Spanning five of the seven continents, only 18 countries are home to billionaires under the age of 40 – of which according to Forbes, there are 100 billionaires.
| Continent | Number of billionaires under 40 |
| Africa | 0 |
| Asia | 28 |
| Europe | 31 |
| North America | 32 |
| South America | 6 |
| Antarctica | 0 |
| Australia | 3 |
The Results
| Country | Number of billionaires under 40 | Average age of billionaires under 40 (years) | Average net wealth of billionaires (USD) |
| United States | 30 | 35 | 9,330,000,000 |
| China | 22 | 36 | 6,177,272,727 |
| Germany | 9 | 33 | 1,677,777,778 |
| Brazil | 5 | 35 | 5,060,000,000 |
| Russia | 5 | 35 | 7,440,000,000 |
| Hong Kong | 4 | 34 | 2,475,000,000 |
| Norway | 4 | 28 | 2,575,000,000 |
| Sweden | 4 | 38 | 2,825,000,000 |
| Australia | 3 | 33 | 1,700,000,000 |
| Denmark | 3 | 34 | 3,833,333,333 |
| Canada | 2 | 34 | 2,700,000,000 |
| India | 2 | 38 | 1,800,000,000 |
| Ireland | 2 | 31 | 9,500,000,000 |
| Colombia | 1 | 39 | 5,200,000,000 |
| Finland | 1 | 34 | 1,800,000,000 |
| Switzerland | 1 | 39 | 9,000,000,000 |
| Turkey | 1 | 36 | 1,500,000,000 |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 36 | 1,200,000,000 |
Money.co.uk can reveal that the United States is home to the most billionaires under 40, with 30 in total! The average age of young billionaires is 35 years, and the mean average wealth is $9.3B.
Of these billionaires, the youngest is Austin Russell, 26, founder and CEO of Luminar – a company that creates LiDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors for driverless vehicles.
The next country with the most young billionaires is China, with a total of 22. Young Chinese billionaires are on average aged 36, and have an average wealth of over $6B.
Germany ranks third, with a total of nine billionaires; these nine have an average age of 33, and an average wealth of $1.6B.
Brazil and Russia are home to five billionaires, respectively, under the age of 40, whilst Hong Kong, Norway, and Sweden are each home to four.
Australia and Denmark follow, with three billionaires each; Australian billionaires have an average age of 33, whilst those in Denmark are 34.
Canada, India, and Ireland are home to two billionaires each, with average ages of 34, 38, and 31, respectively.
Finishing off this data are the countries with only one billionaire under the age of 40 – Colombia, Finland, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
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Methodology
- money.co.uk analysed Forbes’ Real Time Billionaires tracker to find a list of the wealthiest individuals around the globe.
- They then collected all listed billionaires and excluded those over the age of 40, in order to determine the number of ‘young’ billionaires.
- These ‘young’ billionaires were then further narrowed down by nationality, in order to determine the countries producing the highest number of young billionaires. This was also done by continent.
- To find their average age and wealth of billionaires under 40, they added up all of the figures per factor and divided them by the number of billionaires analysed.
- All data was collected on 25/05/2021 and is correct as of then but subject to change.
