Taylor Swift enters the Forbes billionaires list, the first solely thanks to her music

Taylor Swift appears on Forbes’ list of billionaires for the first time. The American pop singer (34) is the first to achieve this status solely thanks to her music, the business magazine writes. The richest person in the world is Frenchman Bernard Arnault, owner of the luxury brand LVMH.

Taylor Swift has currently earned $1.1 billion (875 million euros), based on earnings from her Eras Tour and the value of her music catalog.

Songs and performances

“Swift is the first musician to reach ten-figure status based solely on her songs and performances,” Forbes said.

Previously, Rihanna and Jay-Z also passed the 1 billion dollar mark, but they did not only owe this to their music. Rihanna achieved the status through her beauty brand, Jay-Z through his art collection and shares in companies.

According to Forbes, Swift owes about $500 million of her wealth to royalties and tours, a similar amount she gets from her musical work. Another $125 million comes from her real estate.

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No more billionaires

Forbes counts 2,781 billionaires around the world for its World’s Billionaires list this year. That is 41 more than in 2023 and 26 more than the previous record of 2021. Together they own around 14.2 trillion dollars, two trillion more than last year.

Fourteen people are members of ‘the 100 billion club’, Forbes writes. They own a fortune in twelve figures and are worth a total of two trillion dollars.

Bernard Arnault precedes Elon Musk

The richest person in the world is the French Bernard Arnault, owner of the luxury brand LVMH. His net worth is approximately $233 billion. Tesla, SpaceX and X boss Elon Musk is in second place with $195 billion. The top five is completed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (194 billion), Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg (177 billion) and Oracle founder Larry Ellison (141 billion).

The first Belgian on the honors list is in place 298. It is Eric Wittouck, who became rich as a shareholder of Tiense Suiker. According to Forbes, he owns around $8.5 billion.

View the full Forbes ranking here