How can Russian President Vladimir Putin afford the costs—both direct and indirect—of a new war in Ukraine? Easy—he’s been preparing for years. Russia’s central bank reserves now stand at&nbsp;<a href="https://cbr.ru/eng/hd_base/mrrf/mrrf_7d/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$640 billion</a>, a record. That pile is equivalent to 17 months of Russian export revenues, and continues to grow, thanks to surging oil prices.&nbsp;



Russia exports some 5 million barrels per day of crude oil, plus 2.5 million bpd of refined petroleum products, according to Cowen &amp; Co., amounting to about 10% of the global oil trade. With Brent crude hitting an eight-year high of $88.88 this morning, that amounts to more than $600 million a day in petro-cash.&nbsp;



On top of that is 23 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas exports (roughly 2 bcfd of which now transits through Ukraine)—worth another $400 million a day at today’s&nbsp;<a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PNGASEUUSDM" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">elevated European prices</a>.&nbsp;



Importantly, it’s no longer apt to refer to Russia’s fossil fuel income as “petro-dollars,” as Putin has been working hard to “de-dollarize” the Russian economy. Back in 2013 Russia received dollars for 95% of its exports to Brazil, India, South Africa and China. Today,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/2021-07-23_IF11885_09a6986fb2de221b83de761f118062ca2def8737.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to the Congressional Research Service</a>, after a decade of de-dollarization just 10% of that trade is in greenbacks.&nbsp;



And Putin has created new payment processing systems, as a replacement for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT (from which Biden has threatened to cut Russia off); in 2015 after U.S. sanctions Moscow launched the Mir payment platform (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/russias-mir-card-payment-system-connects-apple-pay-2021-07-20/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">now even connected to Apple Pay</a>). 



Putin has increasingly replaced trade in dollars with gold. From a record low of $2 billion worth of gold in 1995, Russia has piled up a mountain of it—<a href="https://cbr.ru/eng/hd_base/mrrf/mrrf_m/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">now worth $130 billion</a>, or 20% of total reserves. That’s equivalent to about 72 million 1 oz. gold coins, or 4.5 million pounds. Only the U.S., Germany and Italy hold more gold.



Though Russia mines a lot of gold, platinum and palladium itself, some of the pile may be coming from friends like Venezuela, which <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/01/31/russian-airplane-in-venezuela-sparks-rumors-of-gold-theft-by-maduro-ally/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in 2019 reportedly</a> loaded 20 tons of it onto a Russian Boeing 777, part of a liquidation of some <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210303-venezuela-opposition-accuses-government-of-illegal-gold-sales" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">300 tons from Caracas</a> coffers.



(Putin is not the only goldbug—central banks have added&nbsp;<a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Datawatch/Central-banks-accelerate-shift-from-dollar-to-gold-worldwide" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">4,500 tons</a>&nbsp;of gold reserves over the past decade.)



According to Johns Hopkins University economist professor Steve Hanke, Russia’s central bank has displayed high competence in managing the rouble, and it shows: Since 2016 it has held mostly steady at .013 per dollar, though dropping about 8% in recent months during the Ukraine military buildup.&nbsp;



Clearly, Putin has been putting funds to work investing in his military. Spending ramped up to a peak of $90 billion per year in 2013, ahead of his Crimea invasion, and totaled $60 billion in 2020,&nbsp;<a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.CD?locations=RU" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to World Bank data</a>.



This pales in comparison to U.S. military spending <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.CD?locations=US" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">of $780 billion</a> and China’s <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.CD?locations=CN" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$250 billion</a> in 2020—though Russia does spend more as a percentage of GDP, at 4%. Putin could likely ramp that spending more if he wanted to—according to <a href="https://economic-research.bnpparibas.com/Views/DisplayPublication.aspx?type=document&amp;IdPdf=43370" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BNP Paribas data</a>, Russia’s public debt is 18% of GDP, while total external debt is less than 30% of GDP. Ukraine’s debt load is 80% of GDP, while the U.S.’ is <a href="https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/external-debt--of-nominal-gdp" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">more than 100%</a>. 



By Christopher Helman, Forbes Staff

Russian President Putin Holds Annual Press Conference

How Can Putin Afford War In Ukraine? His $130 Billion Gold Horde Helps

Brex’s two twenty-something founders are now billionaires, thanks to a lofty new funding round announced this week that nearly doubled the valuation of their five-year-old fintech firm.



The San Francisco-based startup—which is aiming to overhaul the corporate credit card—confirmed on Tuesday that it has raised $300 million in a funding round led by investment firms Greenoaks Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), giving it a $12.3 billion valuation—a sizable jump from the $7.4 billion valuation it fetched just nine months ago. Cofounders (and co-CEOs) Henrique Dubugras, 26, and Pedro Franceschi, 25, each hold a 14% stake in Brex, Forbes estimates, worth about $1.5 billion apiece. (Forbes discounts the value of privately held companies.) The pair declined to comment on Forbes’ estimates but Dubugras did speak with Forbes about his startup’s path to success.   



The young fintech has made a name for itself with a corporate credit card tailored to the needs of startups. It remains Brex’s marquee product, and the interchange fees merchants pay when employees swipe Brex’s cards constitute nearly all of the company’s revenue. In recent years, Brex has also launched new software offerings like an expense management product and a business bill pay feature: “If you get an invoice in your email, you can just forward it to us and boom, it gets paid,” Dubugras tells&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;on a Zoom call from his home office in Los Angeles. In May, the company rolled out&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninabambysheva/2021/05/12/brex-partners-with-coinbase-and-travelbank-to-launch-bitcoin-and-ether-rewards-program-for-businesses/?sh=9a2e593145a9">one of the first crypto rewards programs for corporations</a>.



Brex is not the only business attempting to disrupt the stodgy, spreadsheet-centric world of B2B payments. Today, its rivals include startup Ramp (founded in 2019 and valued at almost $4 billion after an August funding round) and publicly traded Bill.com (valued at some $21 billion),&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/05/04/billcom-is-set-to-acquire-utah-billion-dollar-software-startup-divvy/?sh=6845e24d3915">which bought expense reporting software fintech Divvy</a>&nbsp;for $2.5 billion last spring. But Brex has been able to attract a deluge of venture capital by offering a suite of products that extend beyond the corporate credit card. Dubugras maintains that he’s not too worried about competition.&nbsp;



“The market is pretty big, and I think that there&#8217;s space for a lot of people,” he says. “Most B2B payments are still paper- and check-based.”



The 1,000-person startup can credit its existence to a lively Twitter exchange in December 2012 between Dubugras and Franceschi about the nuances of coding tools. At the time, they were high school seniors living in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, respectively. The 140-character tweet cap hindered the debate, so the two teens hopped on Skype to discuss further.&nbsp;



“On Skype, we couldn&#8217;t fight that much and became best friends,” says Dubugras.&nbsp;



In 2013, the pals launched a startup called Pagar.me that allowed Brazilian merchants to accept online payments. It was a 150-person outfit by the time they sold it three years later to a larger Brazil-based payments fintech called Stone. Dubugras won’t share the pair’s take, but says it was enough to pay for college—he and Franceschi are both Stanford computer science dropouts—and stow away some savings.&nbsp;



For their next act, the pair initially wanted to build bank accounts for U.S.-based startups, but settled on corporate credit cards as a more attainable route. (“What business would trust their money to these random 22-year-old Brazilians?” chuckles Dubugras. “With corporate cards…we were giving them money instead of asking for their own money.”) Dubugras and Franceschi founded Brex in 2017 after quitting Stanford in the spring of their freshman year and, two years later, both earned spots on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/brex/?sh=40fecfa71fbb">Forbes’&nbsp;30 Under 30 Finance list</a>. By then, Brex had raised $213 million and was valued at $1.1 billion. In 2019, Brex also rolled out its take on the business bank accounts that had enthralled its founders from the start. (Brex is not a chartered bank itself, so it partners with LendingClub or JPMorgan Chase for the accounts.)&nbsp;



All told, the duo has secured more than $1.1 billion in venture money from the likes of Tiger Global Management, Peter Thiel and Affirm founder Max Levchin. The company says its revenue more than doubled over the past 12 months, though it won’t share specifics or comment on profitability; private markets data provider PitchBook estimates Brex generated about $320 million in revenue for 2021. Dubugras says that Brex counts “tens of thousands” of corporate customers today, including the likes of Carta and Classpass.&nbsp;



The startup wants to keep the ball rolling in the new year. With $300 million in fresh funding, Brex aims to increase its headcount by at least 50% while also keeping cash in the coffers in case there’s a market downturn. Brex originally set out to serve startups, but Dubugras says mid-market firms account for more than 60% of its customer base today. In 2022, he hopes to reel in large corporations as well.



“I think it&#8217;s easy for people to think that we&#8217;re already successful,” he says. “We are, and we aren’t. We&#8217;re obviously happy about what we’ve achieved, but there&#8217;s so much more to come.”



By Eliza Haverstock, Forbes Staff

PR-Story21-SeriesD

Two Friends Who Met On Twitter In High School Are Latest Under-30 Billionaires

The NFT craze has minted its first billionaires.&nbsp;



The founders of buzzy blockchain startup OpenSea have joined the three-comma club following a fresh funding round announced Tuesday that values the company at $13.3 billion—up from $1.5 billion just six months ago. With estimated 18.5% stakes in OpenSea, cofounders Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah are each worth about $2.2 billion, Forbes estimates. (Forbes applies a discount to the value of privately-held companies due to limited liquidity. An OpenSea representative declined to comment.)



Founded four years ago, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2021/11/23/what-every-crypto-buyer-should-know-about-opensea-the-king-of-the-nft-market/?sh=10edd5c62f89">New York City-based startup was an early player in the NFT market that took off in early 2021</a>. Shorthand for “nonfungible tokens,” NFTs are computer files used to track ownership of unique digital assets like art, music and even virtual sports cards on a ledger known as a blockchain. OpenSea bills itself as a peer-to-peer platform on which users can create, buy and sell all sorts of NFTs—in exchange for a 2.5% cut of each sale.&nbsp;



OpenSea has grown rapidly over the past year. In March 2020, the five-person outfit counted roughly 4,000 active users doing $1.1 million in monthly transactions,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2021/11/23/what-every-crypto-buyer-should-know-about-opensea-the-king-of-the-nft-market/?sh=10edd5c62f89">for about $28,000 in monthly revenue</a>. Its luck changed in February 2021, when platforms like the Winklevoss twins’ Nifty Gateway&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2021/04/05/revenge-of-the-winklevii-facebook-winklevoss-bitcoin-nft-billionaire-revenge/?sh=b87bb51572af">generated buzz</a>&nbsp;by auctioning off high-end digital art. By July, OpenSea had closed a $100 million funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and recorded about $350 million worth of transactions that month. The next month, transactions hit $3.4 billion—a staggering ten-fold increase that earned the company $85 million in revenue from commissions.&nbsp;



The NFT market cooled off slightly in the months that followed, before heating up again in December. OpenSea&nbsp;<a href="https://dune.xyz/rchen8/opensea" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">processed more than $3.3 billion worth of sales last month</a>, generating&nbsp;about $82.5 million in revenue for itself. Today, the company employs more than 70 people.&nbsp;



Finzer and Atallah, each around 30 years old,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2021/11/23/what-every-crypto-buyer-should-know-about-opensea-the-king-of-the-nft-market/?sh=10edd5c62f89">have familiar resumes for young tech billionaires</a>. CEO Finzer grew up in the Bay Area, studied at Brown University and took a job as a software engineer at Pinterest. In 2015, he cofounded his first startup, a search engine called Claimdog, before selling it to Credit Karma a year later for an undisclosed sum. Colorado-born Chief Technology Officer Atallah proved to be a spreadsheet whiz from a young age. While he was a student at Stanford, he worked at Palantir, according to his LinkedIn profile, and after graduating worked at Silicon Valley startups Zugata and Whatsgoodly.



In January 2018, the duo teamed up for the Y Combinator startup accelerator with an idea for paying users crypto to share their Wi-Fi hotspots. But CryptoKitties—the cartoonish virtual cats that were among the earliest examples of NFTs—captured their imagination.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2021/11/23/what-every-crypto-buyer-should-know-about-opensea-the-king-of-the-nft-market/?sh=10edd5c62f89">Finzer and Atallah quickly pivoted to launch OpenSea and relocated to New York.</a>



Since its start, OpenSea has raised more than $420 million from investors, according to data from PitchBook. The $300 million series C haul announced Tuesday was led by venture capital firms Paradigm and Coatue. OpenSea says it plans to increase its headcount, with a focus on its “trust and safety” teams, and invest in making its products more accessible to a wider audience.&nbsp;



OpenSea faces heightened competition, including from crypto giant Coinbase, which in October announced plans to launch its own NFT exchange. Critics have also called out the potential for fraud and scams in the NFT world. In September,&nbsp;<a href="https://opensea.io/blog/announcements/employee-information-use-at-opensea/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Finzer requested the resignation of OpenSea’s head of product</a>&nbsp;after he was discovered to be buying NFTs shortly before they went live on the marketplace. And, just last week, a New York art gallery&nbsp;<a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/opensea-freezes-2-2m-of-stolen-bored-apes" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly claimed that $2.2 million worth of NFTs had been stolen from him</a>&nbsp;and listed on OpenSea.&nbsp;



If the company can navigate the choppy waters, even greater riches could be on its horizon. Some $23 billion worth of NFTs exchanged (virtual) hands in 2021, according to data tracked by&nbsp;<a href="https://dappradar.com/blog/2021-dapp-industry-report" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DappRadar</a>–and the market is just getting started.



“Our vision is to be the destination for these new open digital economies to thrive,” Finzer said in an emailed statement.



By Eliza Haverstock, Forbes Staff

Screenshot 2022-01-25 at 14.12.10

The First NFT Billionaires: OpenSea Founders Each Worth Billions After New Fundraising

<abbr>D</abbr>espite growing fears of inflation and the onset of new variants of Covid-19, global stock markets have kept humming along in 2021. The S&amp;P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average are both up by double-digits this year, boosted by a wave of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/denizcam/2021/04/06/jackpot-ten-new-billionaires-from-ipos-in-2021/?sh=63cdb865caa1">IPOs</a>&nbsp;and reverse&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2021/04/06/chamath-palihapitiya-and-nine-other-new-billionaires-minted-by-spac-frenzy/?sh=6a1a9f6fed19">mergers</a>&nbsp;that minted several new billionaires. Cryptocurrencies have also been on a tear,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninabambysheva/2021/10/05/six-new-crypto-billionaires-join-the-2021-forbes-400/?sh=28bd474f375d">generating</a>&nbsp;a handful of newcomers to the three-comma club, while record venture capital and private equity activity has given rise to more ten-figure fortunes among owners and investors in private companies. Altogether,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;tracked more than 400 new billionaires in 2021, with an estimated collective net worth of more than $1 trillion. That’s out of a total population of more than 2,600 billionaires&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2021/12/08/the-worlds-billionaires-have-gotten-16-trillion-richer-in-2021/?sh=5999ae8b2c21">globally</a>&nbsp;worth nearly $14 trillion as of December 17. (Net worths for this article are all as of December 17, 2021.)



The richest new billionaire in 2021 is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/miriam-adelson/?sh=211dd7c99c40">Miriam Adelson</a>, the widow of late casino magnate <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2021/01/12/casino-billionaire-republican-power-broker-and-trump-ally-sheldon-adelson-is-dead/?sh=57ae29202743">Sheldon Adelson</a>, who inherited his stake in Las Vegas Sands, which makes up most of her estimated $27.1 billion net worth. She’s one of at least 60 women who became billionaires in 2021, including <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/melinda-french-gates/?sh=36ea8672fcc9">Melinda French Gates</a>, who finalized her <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/08/02/bill-gates-and-melinda-french-gates-finalize-their-divorce/?sh=4fee7c83ba48">divorce</a> from Bill Gates in August and now has an estimated net worth of $6.1 billion. Among those newcomers are several self-made women billionaires, including:



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GettyImages-1228844716-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-52021" width="576" height="384" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GettyImages-1228844716-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GettyImages-1228844716-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GettyImages-1228844716-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GettyImages-1228844716-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GettyImages-1228844716-2048x1366.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px" /><figcaption>(Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2 Presented by Amazon Prime Video)</figcaption></figure></div>



<ul><li>Popstar-turned-fashion mogul&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/rihanna/?sh=562f915b1400">Rihanna</a>, the world’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2021/08/04/fentys-fortune-rihanna-is-now-officially-a-billionaire/?sh=2fc7e17c96b8">richest</a>&nbsp;female musician, has an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion thanks to her 50% stake in cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty. She is also the first billionaire in her home country of Barbados, which recently&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/30/barbados-hails-rihanna-national-hero-as-it-becomes-republic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">honored</a>&nbsp;her as a “national hero.”</li></ul>



<ul><li><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/kim-kardashian-west/?sh=4541960241d6">Kim Kardashian West</a>, who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/02/19/kim-kardashian-files-for-divorce-from-kanye-west/?sh=12b1293790c1">filed</a>&nbsp;for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2021/02/19/inside-the-assets-of-the-kim-kardashian-kanye-west-divorce/?sh=158185ac29a3">divorce</a>&nbsp;from billionaire musician and footwear&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2020/04/24/kanye-west-is-now-officially-a-billionaireand-he-really-wants-the-world-to-know/?sh=4901cc677b9e">magnate</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/kanye-west/?sh=24608fb056f1">Kanye West</a>&nbsp;in February, also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2021/04/06/kim-kardashian-west-is-officially-a-billionaire/?sh=729c9e21bba0">joined</a>&nbsp;the three-comma-club, with an estimated $1.2 billion fortune largely made up of her stakes in cosmetics brand KKW Beauty and shapewear firm Skims. (The former reality TV star filed to drop “West” from her last name in December.)</li><li><a href="https://www.forbes.com/pictures/61ae2ec4cff11e5bb2f4b16b/falguni-nayar-founder-and/?sh=71134b497f1d">Falguni Nayar</a>&nbsp;of India, a former investment banker who founded Indian fashion and cosmetics retailer Nykaa, is the world&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/anuraghunathan/2021/10/23/nykaa-founder-falguni-nayars-net-worth-to-triple-in-upcoming-ipo-at-7-billion-valuation/?sh=2a23894b2d5f">richest</a>&nbsp;self-made woman billionaire to emerge this year with an estimated net worth of $6.8 billion after Nykaa&#8217;s parent company went&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/anuraghunathan/2021/11/10/beauty-retailer-nykaa-lists-at-13-billion-making-founder-falguni-nayar-indias-richest-self-made-woman/?sh=3c3396047eb7">public</a>&nbsp;on the National Stock Exchange in Mumbai, India.</li><li>Close behind her is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/melanie-perkins/?sh=65347c861265">Melanie Perkins</a>, the Australian cofounder of design software firm Canva, with an estimated $6.5 billion fortune thanks to her estimated 18% stake in the company; her husband,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/cliff-obrecht/?sh=7d6df0f629b7">Cliff Obrecht</a>, and a third Canva cofounder, Cameron Adams are also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2021/04/06/canva-reaches-15-billion-valuation-making-cofounders-melanie-perkins-and-cliff-obrecht-billionaires/?sh=7ee55c9d63c1">billionaires</a>—worth an estimated $6.5 billion and $3.2 billion, respectively—after two funding rounds in April and September that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2021/09/14/canva-raises-at-40-billion-valuation-and-founders-pledge-away-their-wealth/?sh=19d559617ba9">valued</a>&nbsp;the firm at $40 billion. Perkins and Obrecht&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/12/14/the-giving-pledge-gains-14-new-members-here-are-the-super-rich-vowing-to-donate-most-of-their-wealth/?sh=29c8bd633774">joined</a>&nbsp;the Giving Pledge this year, promising to donate at least half their fortunes to charitable causes.</li></ul>



Most of the newcomers to the billionaire ranks this year came from China, which added some 160 new billionaires, followed by the United States, with nearly 100. India and Germany each added more than 20, while Sweden stood out among the rest by minting 12 new billionaires, all self-made. Besides Barbados, three countries also got their first billionaires in 2021:



<ul><li>Bulgaria, where the billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2021/11/26/meet-bulgarias-first-billionaires-who-built-a-global-animal-health-firm-from-sofia-to-nebraska/?sh=2c71f5b715f4">brothers</a>&nbsp;Kiril and Georgi Domuschiev built a $4.2 billion empire across animal health, shipping, real estate and soccer by privatizing state-owned companies.</li><li>Estonia, home to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/kristo-kaarmann/?sh=1688015d43f4">Kristo Käärmann</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/taavet-hinrikus/?sh=3bd82c897471">Taavet Hinrikus</a>, founders of money exchange transfer service Wise, which went&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2021/07/07/wise-founders-krmann-and-hinrikus-become-first-estonian-tech-billionaires-after-london-ipo/?sh=73de693f5ecb">public</a>&nbsp;on the London Stock Exchange in July.</li><li>Uruguay, which gained three&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2021/09/07/meet-uruguays-fintech-tycoons-powering-payments-for-netflix-and-amazon-dlocal-sebastian-kanovich/">billionaires</a>&nbsp;after the June IPO of cross-border payments startup dLocal; one has since fallen out of the ranks, but dLocal cofounders Andrés Bzurovski and Sergio Fogel are each worth about $2 billion.</li></ul>



More than half of the new billionaires in 2021 made their fortunes in three industries—manufacturing, technology and finance &amp; investments. Manufacturing had the largest cohort, with the vast majority of them hailing from China, including:



<ul><li><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/deng-weiming/?sh=62b9182a7452">Deng Weiming</a>, the chairman of lithium battery component manufacturer CNGR Advanced Material, is the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2021/11/14/chinese-billionaires-getting-richer-with-clean-energy-businesses/?sh=7fb9aaf51127">richest</a>&nbsp;new manufacturing billionaire in 2021, with an estimated net worth of $9.4 billion.</li><li>Also joining the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2021/07/09/scott-watterson-ifit-war-to-bring-down-peloton/?sh=35aa1cf64953">billionaire</a>&nbsp;ranks in 2021 is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/scott-watterson/?sh=446a227627c1">Scott Watterson</a>, cofounder of Logan, Utah-based gym equipment maker and Peloton rival iFIT, which produces treadmills, stationary bikes and other connected fitness machines; the firm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211007005598/en/iFIT-Postpones-Initial-Public-Offering" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">postponed</a>&nbsp;its October IPO, citing “adverse market conditions.”</li></ul>



Cryptocurrencies and meme stocks made <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/06/02/not-just-amc-these-are-the-meme-stocks-reddit-traders-are-pumping-again-as-experts-urge-extreme-caution/?sh=93b18a255fcf">headlines</a> this year, A new class of billionaires emerged starting in January, when video game retailer GameStop <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/01/26/gamestops-massive-surge-creates-a-new-billionaire-as-wall-street-bets-against-reddit-traders/?sh=3cdbf4db35ae">propelled</a> the rise of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/ryan-cohen/?sh=652ceafc4f2b">Ryan Cohen</a>—an activist investor and the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2017/01/10/the-man-who-found-gold-in-dog-food/?sh=1adc4d213095">founder</a> and former CEO of pet e-commerce giant Chewy—into the three-comma-club. Cryptocurrencies continued to rise throughout 2021, minting many new <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2021/04/06/the-cryptocurrency-tycoons-on-forbes-2021-billionaires-list/?sh=3c8cb90525e2">fortunes</a> including:



<ul><li><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/sam-bankman-fried/?sh=7d8d3fa24449">Sam Bankman-Fried</a>, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenehrlich/2021/10/06/the-richest-under-30-in-the-world-all-thanks-to-crypto/?sh=7f8d8e033f4d">joined</a>&nbsp;The Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans this year as the richest self-made newcomer in the history of the list. He is worth an estimated $26.5 billion.</li><li>Crypto entrepreneurs and brothers&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/cameron-winklevoss/">Cameron</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/tyler-winklevoss/?sh=73fdee2e2cbd">Tyler Winklevoss</a>, each have an estimated $5 billion&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2021/04/05/revenge-of-the-winklevii-facebook-winklevoss-bitcoin-nft-billionaire-revenge/?sh=63be38e01572">fortune</a>&nbsp;thanks to their cryptocurrency investments and stakes in crypto exchange Gemini.&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;featured the twins in a cover story in April.</li><li><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/vitalik-buterin/?sh=2abe75dd75dd">Vitalik Buterin</a>, the Canadian-Russian&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninabambysheva/2021/11/03/ethereum-co-founder-vitalik-buterins-net-worth-hits-146-billion-as-ether-is-trading-at-all-time-high/?sh=72beaa602250">founder</a>&nbsp;of blockchain platform Ethereum and its cryptocurrency Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion. (Buterin has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilymason/2021/06/21/ethereum-creator-loses-over-400-million-as-crypto-market-collapses/?sh=eeec91d20878">fallen</a>&nbsp;in and out of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninabambysheva/2021/05/03/ethereums-27-year-old-co-creator-is-now-the-worlds-youngest-crypto-billionaire/?sh=60aeb7087c94">billionaire</a>&nbsp;ranks alongside Ethereum’s seesawing price.)</li></ul>



Fintech company founders also became new billionaires across the globe as a result of IPOs andnew funding rounds in 2021. They include:



<ul><li><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/david-velez/?sh=6230067684ac">David Vélez</a>&nbsp;of Colombia and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2021/12/09/shares-of-digital-bank-nubank-rise-15-in-ipo-valuing-the-company-at-45-billion-and-minting-a-new-female-billionaire-cofounder/?sh=756046834317">Cristina Junqueira</a>&nbsp;of Brazil,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2021/04/07/fintech-billionaire-david-velez-nubank-brazil-digital-bank/?sh=91071cd6b279">cofounders</a>&nbsp;of digital bank Nubank, are now worth an estimated $9.7 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively, following the firm’s IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in December.</li><li><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/guillaume-pousaz/">Guillaume Pousaz</a>, the Swiss founder of London-based payment processing firm Checkout.com,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2021/04/07/checkoutcoms-guillaume-pousaz-emerges-as-one-of-europes-leading-billionaire-fintech-founders/?sh=a0cc9119f5ff">emerged</a>&nbsp;as a billionaire after the company’s $450 million funding round in January, which valued it at $15 billion.</li><li><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/victor-jacobsson/?sh=7b118ca32459">Victor Jacobsson</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/sebastian-siemiatkowski/?sh=1c814eec6e25">Sebastian Siemiatkowski</a>, cofounders of ​​Swedish buy now, pay later firm Klarna, became&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2021/03/01/klarnas-valuation-triples-in-six-months-making-cofounders-billionaires/?sh=470187927654">billionaires</a>&nbsp;in March when the company raised $1 billion at a $31 billion valuation, giving them estimated $2.7 billion and $2.2 billion fortunes, respectively.</li></ul>



New listings reached record highs in 2021, both in the form of IPOs and in mergers with blank check companies known as SPACs (short for special purpose acquisition company). SPACs made up 64% of the 953 public listings in the United States so far this year, <a href="https://spacanalytics.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a> to SPAC Analytics. That’s up more than 140% from the total number in 2020, while new listings overall have more than doubled. New billionaires from SPACs and IPOs in 2021 include:



<ul><li><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mat-ishbia/?sh=7c5134b218af">Mat</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/justin-ishbia/?sh=7af17098781a">Justin Ishbia</a>&nbsp;of Michigan-based United Wholesale Mortgage, the country&#8217;s second-largest mortgage lender, which went&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/01/23/how-mat-ishbia-cashed-in-on-the-biggest-spac-ever-from-benchwarmer-to-13-billion/?sh=98192c87a333">public</a>&nbsp;via SPAC merger in January; Mat’s shares are worth an estimated $7.3 billion, while Justin’s are worth an estimated $2.2 billion.</li><li><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/sytse-sid-sijbrandij/?sh=4db1e4d66e5b">Sytse ‘Sid’ Sijbrandij</a>, the Dutch founder of software development platform Gitlab, took the company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2021/10/14/gitlab-reaches-15-bil-market-cap-as-shares-jump-in-ipo/">public</a>&nbsp;on the Nasdaq in a blockbuster IPO in October that made him a billionaire; he now has an estimated net worth of $2 billion.</li></ul>



Private companies have also been receiving record levels of investment from <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevindowd/2021/09/19/an-unprecedented-year-for-private-equity-is-spilling-into-the-middle-market/?sh=35320712737a">private equity</a> firms and <a href="https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/2021-us-vc-fundraising-exits-deal-flow-charts" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">venture capitalists</a>, elevating many founders into their billionaire ranks without having to resort to public markets. Others also became billionaires thanks to mergers and acquisitions by larger companies amid <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/global-markets-ma-2021-08-12/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">record</a> M&amp;A activity. Among those newcomers are:



<ul><li><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/alex-shevchenko/?sh=5cd73ce67026">Alex Shevchenko</a>&nbsp;and<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/max-lytvyn/?sh=6297768239cf">&nbsp;Max Lytvyn</a>, the Ukrainian-born founders of grammar checking tool Grammarly, are each worth an estimated $4 billion after Grammarly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/11/23/grammarly-founders-become-billionaires-from-fixing-your-sloppy-writing/?sh=4a0a37745852">raised</a>&nbsp;$200 million in November from investors including Baillie Gifford and BlackRock at a $13 billion valuation.</li><li>Lord of the Rings&nbsp;director&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/peter-jackson/?sh=4777cf207ab4">Peter Jackson</a>&nbsp;sold most of his New Zealand-based visual effects shop Weta Digital to video game software firm Unity Software for $1.6 billion in November, a deal that made him a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2021/11/12/bilbo-bags-a-billion-lord-of-the-rings-director-peter-jackson-is-officially-a-billionaire/?sh=5d68010c12ca">billionaire</a>, with an estimated $1.5 billion fortune.</li></ul>



By Giacomo Tognini, Forbes Staff

Screenshot 2022-01-17 at 13.40.06

Rihanna, The Winklevoss Twins, And More: Here Are The Most Notable New Billionaires Of 2021

Screenshot 2022-01-17 at 11.18.07

The Billionaires Who Died In 2021

<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/reliance-industries/">Reliance Industries</a>, a conglomerate controlled by Asia’s richest businessman,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mukesh-ambani/">Mukesh Ambani</a>, has signed an MoU with the government of Gujarat state to invest 5.9 trillion rupees ($80 billion) in green projects, according to a company&nbsp;<a href="https://archives.nseindia.com/corporate/RELIANCE_13012022162458_MediaReleaseRIL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announcement</a>&nbsp;to the National Stock Exchange of India.



The investments would, if carried out, make the western state achieve net-zero carbon emission by 2035. The announcement indicates that Ambani has increased its ambition for investing in green projects. In June, it said it planned to invest $10 billion in renewable energy.



To help make Gujarat net-zero carbon, Reliance proposes to invest five trillion rupees ($67.4 billion) in the state over 10 to 15 years to set up a 100 gigawatt renewable energy power plant and green hydrogen eco-system development. The firm will develop an eco-system for assisting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and encourage entrepreneurs to adopt new technologies and innovations leading to captive use of renewable energy and green hydrogen.



The firm said it will invest another 600 billion rupees ($8.1 billion) in setting up new energy manufacturing-integrated renewable manufacturing for to make solar panels, electrolyzer and fuel cells. Further, 250 billion rupees ($3.37 billion) investments are planned in existing projects and new ventures over the next 3 to 5 years. The company said it will also invest to upgrade its cellular operator, Jio to use 5G and to expand its retail business.



The conglomerate’s initiatives for decarbonization and creating a green ecosystem aim to support plans of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As of November, India’s installed renewable energy capacity had reached 150 GW, nearly 40% of the total installed electricity capacity of 392 GW. The country has a target to have <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/business/brighter-days-await-renewable-energy-space-investments-likely-to-cross-15-billion-in-2022/article38026118.ece" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">500 GW</a> of installed renewable energy capacity by 2030 and be net carbon zero by 2070.



Reliance Industries is India’s largest private sector company, with revenue reaching $73.8 billion in the year ended March 2021. The company stands 55th in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/lists/global2000/">Forbes Global 2000</a>&nbsp;rankings of “World’s Largest Public Companies” for 2021 &#8211; top-most among Indian companies.



Units of Reliance Industries make plastics and petrochemicals in the world&#8217;s largest refinery complex in Gujarat. The company also includes Jio, India&#8217;s largest mobile telecom provider and Reliance Retail, India’s biggest retailer.



By Yessar Rosendar, Forbes Staff

Mukesh Ambani Releases Sam Pitroda’s Autobiography “Dreaming Big”

Indian Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries To Invest $80 Billion In Renewable Energy Push

Tesla, the fastest-growing U.S. automaker, reported record deliveries of its electric vehicles in 2021’s final quarter and its best-ever total sales volume, getting 936,172 of its namesake cars and crossovers to global customers.&nbsp;



The company said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-q4-2021-vehicle-production-deliveries" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement</a>&nbsp;Sunday it delivered 308,600 units, led mainly by growth in Model Y hatchbacks and Model 3 sedans, with pricey Model S and Model X crossovers, which sell for about $100,000 each, accounting for a much smaller portion. Production for the quarter at Tesla’s plants in Fremont, California, and Shanghai totaled 305,840 units and 930,422 for the year.&nbsp;



The company doesn’t break down its sales by region, but China has been key to its accelerating volume growth, both in deliveries to customers there and as an export base to Europe and other markets. The quarterly delivery tally, up about 70% from a year ago, beat expectations of equity analysts including Deutsche Bank’s Emmanuel Rosner, who estimated deliveries would reach 282,000 units. Tesla’s full-year deliveries rose 87% from 2021.



Though the company fell just short of delivering 1 million vehicles last year, CEO Elon Musk has said he thinks Tesla can sell 20 million EVs annually by the end of the decade. That would be unprecedented since the world’s biggest automakers, including Toyota and Volkswagen, only sell about 10 million units worldwide annually. Certainly, Tesla should continue to see substantial growth throughout 2022 as it prepares to open new plants in Germany and Texas that will boost its total production capacity amid rising consumer interest in EVs.



“Musk &amp; Co. have navigated the chip supply shortages better than any automaker globally over the last six months, which is why Tesla is in a clear position of strength heading into 2022 with an inflection point year ahead,” Dan Ives, an equity analyst with Wedbush, said in a research note last week in which he raised his target price on the shares to as much as $1800. “The linchpin to the overall bull thesis on Tesla remains China, which we estimate will represent 40% of deliveries for the EV maker in 2022.”



The company is to release revenue and net income results in a few weeks.&nbsp;



Tesla shares fell 1.3% to $1,056.78 on Friday, the final trading day of 2021.



By Alan Ohnsman, Forbes Staff

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and chairman of Tesla Motors at Tesla’s headquarters in San Carlos Tuesday Oct. 24, 3008.  Silicon Valley icon Musk became a billionaire founding PayPal, but he’s out to do something even more important – help humanity reach beyon

Tesla Says It Delivered Record 936,172 Electric Vehicles In 2021

Jihan Wu gives a rare interview to discuss his latest ventures, his departure from mining giant Bitmain and the future of the crypto market.



Cryptocurrencies were born to be volatile, says&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/wu-jihan/?sh=4956c0aa2f69">Jihan Wu</a>, but their growth over the long term will far outweigh their price fluctuations. “Even if 95% of today’s coins lose all their value and disappear, the remaining 5% will grow massively,” he says.



Wu’s optimism is borne of his experience. He discovered bitcoin and recognized its early promise more than a decade ago, when he saw it being used to buy computer hardware and IT services in online forums like&nbsp;<a href="https://bitcointalk.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bitcointalk.org</a>. But to break out of its niche market and gain wider acceptance, bitcoin would need far more infrastructure to support it. So, Wu began working on a solution that would play a vital role in bitcoin’s development.



In 2013, Wu teamed up with Micree Ketuan Zhan to launch&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bitmain.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bitmain Technologies</a>, a supplier of specialized hardware known as mining rigs which are designed for the single task of adding transactions to bitcoin’s blockchain. The people who own the hardware earn, or mine, new bitcoins by making their processing power available to the network.



As bitcoin’s price rose over the years, Bitmain’s mining rigs became a runaway success, and it turned both Wu and Zhan into billionaires. By 2018, Bitmain had become the world’s largest supplier of cryptocurrency mining rigs with a market share of 75%, according to Frost &amp; Sullivan. And the Beijing-based company was preparing for a multibillion-dollar public listing in Hong Kong—until bitcoin crashed, losing 70% of its value by the end of that same year.



Bitmain’s IPO became a casualty of bitcoin’s volatility and placed a heavy strain on the company’s finances. And the two cofounders were quickly thrust into a scramble for survival that later evolved into a struggle for control of the company.



Today, Wu looks back at bitcoin’s twists and turns as milestones on his entrepreneurial journey toward building one of the world’s largest crypto business empires. Bitmain has since returned to profitability, according to Wu, and continues to dominate the global market for mining rigs from its headquarters in Beijing in spite of China’s recent crackdown on crypto mining and trading. In response to the new restrictions, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bitmain.com/news-detail/bitmain-develops-carbon-neutral-strategy-while-improving-plans-for-enhanced-chip-development-162" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ceased shipments</a>&nbsp;to its clients in mainland China, although overseas customers are said to be unaffected. Bitmain is also building rigs that use less energy to address regulator’s concerns, but it did not elaborate on any further measures it intends to adopt.



Wu stepped away from Bitmain at the beginning of the year to focus on his role as chairman of two spinoffs which are both based in Singapore—<a href="https://www.bitdeer.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bitdeer Technologies</a>, a cryptocurrency mining platform that’s already announced plans to list on the Nasdaq at a $4 billion valuation, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.matrixport.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Matrixport</a>, a financial services firm valued at $1 billion in its latest funding round.



Matrixport’s launch in February 2019 was another demonstration of Wu’s long-term optimism for the crypto industry. Bitcoin was still in a bear market when he and his fellow cofounder John Ge Yuesheng established their firm.



“We believed that crypto and blockchain together would experience rapid growth in the future to tens of trillions of dollars,” Wu says. “And many of these new users will stay in the crypto market forever, so they’ll need advanced and sophisticated products to manage the wealth they accumulate in crypto assets.”



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-2021-12-30-at-08.23.58-1024x632.png" alt="" class="wp-image-53802" width="673" height="415" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-2021-12-30-at-08.23.58-1024x632.png 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-2021-12-30-at-08.23.58-300x185.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-2021-12-30-at-08.23.58-768x474.png 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-2021-12-30-at-08.23.58-1536x948.png 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screenshot-2021-12-30-at-08.23.58.png 1568w" sizes="(max-width: 673px) 100vw, 673px" /></figure></div>



Their decision to push ahead looks prescient now. Since Matrixport was launched, the overall market cap of cryptocurrencies shot up to an all-time high of $3 trillion in November, according to data from CoinGecko. And the global market size of crypto users has more than doubled to 221 million people in the first half of the year, according to a report from Crypto.com.



Cryptocurrencies have been riding high this year on signs that digital assets are becoming more mainstream. El Salvador became the first country in the world to accept bitcoin as legal tender and a growing number of companies including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimberleespeakman/2021/08/09/amc-plans-to-accept-bitcoin-at-movie-theaters-by-the-end-of-2021/?sh=27677d172f60">AMC</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://about.att.com/story/2019/att_bitpay.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AT&amp;T</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zinnialee/2021/11/09/mastercard-teams-up-with-three-asian-crypto-companies-to-launch-bitcoin-payment-cards/?sh=46df17432431">Mastercard</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/adding-bitcoin-as-a-payment-method/96686c0a-708e-4795-99cb-c2a348ec215f" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Microsoft</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/cryptocurrency-on-paypal-faq-faq4398" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">PayPal</a>&nbsp;and are now accepting some cryptocurrencies as payments.



Buoyed by the rising tide of the crypto market, Matrixport raised $100 million during a Series C funding round announced in August that was led by partners of Yuri Milner’s DST Global,&nbsp;Adrian Cheng’s C Ventures&nbsp;and Kuok Meng Xiong’s K3 Ventures along with other participants including Qiming Venture Partners and existing backers like IDG Capital and Dragonfly Capital.



Wu’s track record of building multiple multi-billion dollar companies is nearly unparalleled, says Adam Goldberg, cofounder of Standard Crypto, a venture fund based in San Francisco. Goldberg, who was formerly with Lightspeed Venture Partners, became an investor in Bitmain around 2017, and later joined the board of Matrixport.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Jihan is a generational entrepreneur. He is uniquely agile, resilient, and always peeking around corners to preview the future of the crypto industry.”-Adam Goldberg, cofounder of Standard Crypto</blockquote>



Matrixport’s name alludes to its aim of becoming a gateway or portal for investors to enter a new digital realm, much like in Wu’s favorite movie&nbsp;The Matrix. The firm’s strategy involves offering investment products like those found on Wall Street but tailored to crypto investors.



Matrixport’s services include custody, trading, lending and structured products. Wu said they were the first to offer crypto dual currency products, which are investments that offer guaranteed yields with the payments settled in one of two possible cryptocurrencies depending on market prices at the time. The firm says it now has $10 billion in assets under management and custody and has more than&nbsp;$5 billion&nbsp;in average monthly trading volumes.



Wu’s other venture, Bitdeer, is a mining platform that currently operates five pools in the U.S. and Norway with more than 100,000 mining units under its management.



Bitdeer and Matrixport were both spun off from Bitmain as part of a settlement deal reached between Wu and Zhan after the two cofounders clashed. A nondisclosure agreement prevents Wu from speaking in detail about the terms of that deal, but he was able to discuss the circumstances that led to it with&nbsp;Forbes Asia&nbsp;for the first time.&nbsp;



“That was a tough period for our business and for me. And of course, the pressures of running a complex manufacturing business built up and eventually led to a falling out between us two cofounders,” Wu recalls.



Bitmain had rapidly gone from generating $2.5 billion in revenue in 2017, and a profit of $742 million in the first half of 2018, according to its prospectus filed to the Hong Kong stock exchange, to the point it was losing money and laying off swathes of staff.



The company had ventured into a number of different areas during the boom time—AI, mining pool construction, a decentralized crypto exchange, venture capital, etc.—but many of those initiatives failed to turn a profit during the bear market of 2018, which came to be known as “crypto winter,” a deep selloff followed by a long period of flat trading.&nbsp;



Bitmain’s two cofounders, who had previously worked together as co-CEOs, disagreed over its strategic direction and a power struggle ensued. The dispute became public at times until a deal was finally brokered at the end of last year that saw Wu step down as chairman and CEO of Bitmain, although he still retains a stake in the company. Zhan is now running Bitmain’s manufacturing operation and another mining pool called Antpool.



“The settlement agreement marks the end of the hardship. Bitmain didn’t go bankrupt, instead it’s doing really well now,” Wu says. “Bitmain’s accumulated net profit is expected to reach between $2 billion and $4 billion. It’s a company that generates very high profits.”



Wu’s path to crypto entrepreneurship began with his discovery of bitcoin when he was working as an investment analyst in Beijing. Having studied economics and psychology from Peking University, he instantly became engrossed by Satoshi Nakamoto’s idea for a decentralized digital currency.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“The white paper he [Nakamoto] published in 2008 opened up a new world and offered an opportunity for new players like us to participate.” -Wu Jihan, chairman of Bitdeer and Matrixport</blockquote>



Wu said he immediately dropped his studies to become a certified accountant to instead focus on learning and then investing in bitcoin. After buying hundreds of coins himself in 2011, Wu invested in ASICMiner, a bitcoin mining company founded in 2012 by Jiang Xinyu, or&nbsp;<a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=49840" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Friedcat</a>&nbsp;as he was known in various online forums. The profits Wu gained from that deal was combined with capital from a group of other investors to start Bitmain in partnership with Zhan in 2013.



Zhan was a chip designer who had been running his own business of making set-top boxes for televisions prior to teaming up with Wu. The two established Bitmain as one of the earliest manufacturers of the specialized chips used for mining cryptocurrencies known as application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs.



Wu’s initial aim was to be a VC investor behind Bitmain, but after committing his capital, he soon realized the heavy demands of running a tech startup required him to get involved in managing the company.



In less than four years, Bitmain became the most influential company in the bitcoin economy. Bitmain’s vertical integration extended from designing the chips used in its mining rigs to assembling the hardware and selling them to customers around the world. At the same time, Bitmain was operating mining pools on contract to customers, as well as owning several of its own pools. Bitmain’s pools contributed about 37% of the aggregate processing power of the Bitcoin network by 2018.



In spite of the regulatory uncertainty that characterizes cryptocurrencies in many of the world’s largest markets, Wu believes the industry will continue to develop unique innovations because it isn’t subjected to the constraints of the traditional financial system.



“Innovations like DeFi [decentralized finance] are breathtaking,” he says. “Technologies like crypto and blockchain have created a new world, allowing fintech entrepreneurs to make big achievements. Eventually, traditional financial institutions and regulators will embrace blockchain technology.”



By Robert Olsen and Zinnia Lee, Forbes Staff

Key Speakers at the Shape the Future Blockchain Global Summit

Billionaire Crypto Pioneer Says Market Will Grow To Tens Of Trillions Of Dollars

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=627b29af7999">Elon Musk</a>, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the richest person in history, was named&nbsp;Time&nbsp;magazine’s&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Person of the Year</a>&nbsp;for 2021 on Monday, capping a year of accomplishments and controversies for the billionaire.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



This year SpaceX completed the first all-civilian mission to space and was selected by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/as-artemis-moves-forward-nasa-picks-spacex-to-land-next-americans-on-moon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NASA</a>&nbsp;to build a new lunar lander, while Tesla’s market cap reached over $1 trillion after a deal with Hertz, making Musk the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/10/26/elon-musk-nearing-300-billion-fortune-is-the-richest-person-in-history/?sh=345fd6081933">richest person ever</a>.



He also hosted&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/05/13/elon-musk-is-20-billion-poorer-since-hosting-saturday-night-live/?sh=1d3ff9c3fcb6">Saturday Night Live</a>&nbsp;and continued his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/style/elon-musk-memes.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">meme-filled</a>&nbsp;Twitter reign.



Time&nbsp;named&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/entertainer-of-the-year-2021-olivia-rodrigo/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Olivia Rodrigo</a>&nbsp;as Artist of the Year for 2021, gymnast&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/athlete-of-the-year-2021-simone-biles/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Simone Biles</a>&nbsp;as Athlete of the Year and the scientists behind the Covid-19 vaccines as&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/heroes-of-the-year-2021-vaccine-scientists/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Heroes of the Year</a>.



The magazine did not release a shortlist of contenders for the Person of the Year position, unlike in years past.



Last year the magazine&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/12/11/joe-biden-kamala-harris-named-times-person-of-the-year-beating-out-trump-fauci-and-racial-justice-movement/?sh=1d00a60c6ba4">co-named</a>&nbsp;Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the title.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Musk is a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/08/elon-musk-snl-saturday-night-live-host-internet-controversy-485781" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">divisive</a>&nbsp;figure. While his&nbsp;Time&nbsp;profile makes clear he is widely considered a visionary, it also mentions that his companies have faced allegations of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043336212/tesla-racial-discrimination-lawsuit" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">racism</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-sued-by-second-female-worker-over-sexual-harassment-retaliation-2021-12-10/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sexual harassment</a>&nbsp;and been accused of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/18/tesla-workers-factory-conditions-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">poor working conditions</a>, as well as extensive fines by regulators. As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/13/media/slug-time-person-year-elon-musk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CNN</a>&nbsp;pointed out,&nbsp;Time’s Person of the Year is “not necessarily considered an honor, since the selection could have wielded negative influence.” Past title holders include everyone from Greta Thunberg and Pope Francis to Vladimir Putin and even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/08/19/fact-check-hitler-time-magazine-man-year-1938-not-honor/8149799002/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Adolf Hitler</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=627b29af7999">$265.4 billion</a>. That’s Musk’s net worth as of Monday, according to&nbsp;Forbes.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



The&nbsp;Time&nbsp;Person of the Year profile describes Musk a number of ways, including: “This is the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit: clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman, cad; a madcap hybrid of Thomas Edison, P.T. Barnum, Andrew Carnegie and&nbsp;Watchmen’s Doctor Manhattan, the brooding, blue-skinned man-god who invents electric cars and moves to Mars.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



“<a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021</a>” (Time)



“<a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk-choice/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Why TIME Chose Elon Musk as the 2021 Person of the Year</a>&nbsp;(Time)



“<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/13/media/slug-time-person-year-elon-musk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Time Person of the Year: Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, named most influential of 2021</a>” (CNN)



“<a href="https://www.today.com/news/time-2021-person-year-elon-musk-t242943" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Time 2021 Person of the Year: Elon Musk</a>” (Today)



“<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/10/26/elon-musk-nearing-300-billion-fortune-is-the-richest-person-in-history/?sh=345fd6081933">Elon Musk, Nearing $300 Billion Fortune, Is The Richest Person In History</a>” (Forbes)



“<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/time-person-of-the-year/3/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Complete list of every TIME Person of the Year for the last 25+ years, from Trump to Putin to Obama</a>” (CBS News)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/teakvetenadze/"></a>By Téa Kvetenadze, Forbes Staff

TIME Person of the Year

Elon Musk Named Time Person Of The Year

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates has led by any measure a highly eventful life—but says no year was more “difficult” or “unusual” than 2021. The world’s No. 4 richest person (worth&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/?list=rtb/&amp;sh=4a6148f0689f">nearly $139 billion</a>,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates) opened up about his personal struggles—including his headline-making divorce from Melinda French Gates—in a year-in-review post&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Year-in-Review-2021?WT.mc_id=20211207100000_YIR2021_BG-TW_&amp;WT.tsrc=BGTW" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">published</a>&nbsp;on Tuesday to his blog, GatesNotes.&nbsp;



The typically upbeat Gates struck a somber tone in his lengthy annual post, describing 2021 as “an incredibly hard year for many people, including me.” While admitting he’d rather focus on his work over the past year, Gates recognized the national curiosity around his divorce, which was announced suddenly in May after 27 years of marriage, and offered some insight into his feelings since.&nbsp;



“Melinda and I continue to run our foundation together and have found a good new working rhythm,” Gates wrote of the pair’s continued work with their nonprofit, the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation. “But I can’t deny that it’s been a year of great personal sadness for me. Adapting to change is never easy, no matter what it is.”&nbsp;



One of the biggest changes has been spending “stretches of time without any face-to-face interactions,” said Gates, describing himself as an “empty-nester” thanks to the departures of his two youngest children, Phoebe and Rory. His third child, Jenn, recently&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2021/11/28/north-salem-billionaires-dirt-road-wes-edens-jamie-dinan-larry-fink-georgina-bloomberg-david-letterman-richard-gere-andmore/?sh=1c2f810e3bef">married</a>&nbsp;equestrian Nayel Nasser in an event Gates deemed “the highlight of [his] year.”&nbsp;



Though “the house is a lot quieter without a bunch of teenagers hanging around” and it’s easier to focus on doing work or reading a book (a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/11/22/these-are-bill-gates-5-favorite-books-of-2021/?sh=2fe79508bb7c">favorite hobby </a>of his), Gates said he misses having his children around. “It’s a strange and disorienting experience,” he wrote. “My personal world has never felt smaller than it did over the last twelve months.” 



All in all, it was a year of “big transitions” for the Microsoft billionaire, but that was far from the only thing on his mind. Gates said he spent a lot of time thinking about the long-term impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, including what he fears to be a dangerous decline in people’s trust in public institutions, a trend he attributed in part to the lack of regulation of social media platforms and the spread of disinformation.&nbsp;



“Based on what I’ve seen over the last couple of years, I’m more worried than I’ve ever been about the ability of governments to get big things done,” Gates wrote, adding that he is particularly concerned because of the need for governments to take action on challenges like avoiding a climate disaster or preventing the next pandemic. The billionaire, who is writing a book on pandemic preparedness, said this topic is the “biggest and most important thing I’m working on in 2022.”&nbsp;



On a more positive note, Gates expressed optimism and excitement about technological advancements sparked by the pandemic that he thinks have the potential to revolutionize healthcare, education and office work. For example, Gates said he expects most work meetings will be taking place within&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2021/11/03/zuckerberg-facebook-metaverse-meta-virtual-reality-oculus/?sh=50af824d6b69">the metaverse</a>&nbsp;using 3D digital avatars within the next two or three years.&nbsp;



&nbsp;“As unbelievable as it sounds, we’re only starting to see how digitization is going to change our lives,” he wrote. “There is so much potential for technology to create more flexibility and options for people.”&nbsp;



As for when coronavirus-related disruptions may end, Gates predicted the “acute phase” of the pandemic will come to a close “some time in 2022.” He recognized the newly emerging Omicron variant as “concerning,” but said “the world is better prepared to tackle potentially bad variants than at any other point in the pandemic so far.” In the future, Gates said he expects communities to see occasional outbreaks. However, “new drugs will be able to take care of most cases and hospitals will be able to handle the rest.”



By Jemima McEvoy, Forbes Staff

2019 New York Times Dealbook

Bill Gates Reflects On His Divorce, Being Alone During Covid And The ‘Most Difficult’ Year Of His Life

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Michael Steinhardt, a hedge fund&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/michael-steinhardt/?sh=78c418305466">billionaire</a>&nbsp;and one of the world’s largest ancient art collectors, agreed to an “unprecedented” lifetime ban from collecting antiquities and surrendered 180 pieces of stolen artwork worth $70 million following a multi-year investigation that spanned multiple countries, the Manhattan’s District Attorney’s Office&nbsp;<a href="https://www.manhattanda.org/d-a-vance-michael-steinhardt-surrenders-180-stolen-antiquities-valued-at-70-million/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;on Monday.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.manhattanda.org/d-a-vance-michael-steinhardt-surrenders-180-stolen-antiquities-valued-at-70-million/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">press release</a>&nbsp;his office began investigating Steinhardt’s role in the acquisition, possession and sale of more than 1,000 antiquities in 2017, and found compelling evidence that 180 pieces were stolen from their country of origin.



The 180 antiquities that were deemed to be stolen will be returned to their rightful owners in 11 different countries, and Steinhardt agreed to a “first-of-its-kind” lifetime ban from acquiring more antiquities, according to the district attorney’s office.



Vance said Steinhardt’s pursuit of obtaining new pieces of art “knew no geographic or moral boundaries,” which he said was reflected in the “crime bosses, money launderers and tomb raiders” Steinhardt relied upon to expand his collection.



Andrew J. Levander and Theodore V. Wells Jr., Steinhardt’s attorneys, said in a statement to&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;that Steinhardt was pleased the investigation “concluded without any charges, and that items wrongfully taken by others will be returned to their native countries.”



Steinhardt and the District Attorney’s office reached an agreement that will end the grand jury investigation, meaning Steinhardt will not be criminally prosecuted in the case.



Vance said the agreement will avoid a trial so that the pieces could be returned “expeditiously” to their owners, rather than be held as evidence for years, and to avoid “over-burdening resource-scarce” nations who would have been called as witnesses to the trial.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



The criminal probe into Steinhardt’s collection began in 2017, when the district attorney’s office determined that he bought a multi-million dollar statue of a bull’s head, which had been stolen during the Lebanese Civil War, and loaned it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Months later, the district attorney’s office&nbsp;<a href="https://www.manhattanda.org/category/antiquities-trafficking/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">formed</a>&nbsp;the Antiquities Trafficking Unit, and returned the bull’s head, along with a second statue, to Lebanon at the end of 2017. The district attorney’s office continued investigating Steinhardt’s collection of antiquities—at one point investigators&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/nyregion/antiques-seized-from-billionaire-michael-steinhardt-cyrus-vance.html?hp&amp;amp;action=click&amp;amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;amp;module=nygeo-promo-region&amp;amp;region=nygeo-promo-region&amp;amp;WT.nav=nygeo-promo-region" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">raided</a>&nbsp;his home and office—and conducted joint investigations with authorities in Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Turkey. Of the 180 pieces seized by the district attorney’s office, 171 were determined to have been in the possession of antiquities traffickers, who acquired them following civil unrest or looting, according to the district attorney’s office.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



“Steinhardt viewed these precious artifacts as simple commodities — things to collect and own. He failed to respect that these treasures represent the heritage of cultures around the world from which these items were looted, often during times of strife and unrest,” Ricky J. Patel, New York acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/HSINewYork/status/1467936154192429058?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;in a press release.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



$1.2 billion. That’s how much Steinhardt’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/michael-steinhardt/?sh=78c418305466">net worth</a>&nbsp;is, as of Monday, according to&nbsp;Forbes’ billionaire tracker.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.manhattanda.org/d-a-vance-michael-steinhardt-surrenders-180-stolen-antiquities-valued-at-70-million/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">D.A. Vance: Michael Steinhardt Surrenders 180 Stolen Antiquities Valued at $70 Million</a>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2014/01/22/michael-steinhardt-wall-streets-greatest-trader-is-back-and-hes-reinventing-investing-again/?sh=783503bc5f75">Michael Steinhardt, Wall Street&#8217;s Greatest Trader, Is Back — And He&#8217;s Reinventing Investing Again</a> (Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan-1/"></a>By Anna Kaplan, Forbes Staff 



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan-1/"></a>

Michael Steinhardt at the Champions of Jewish Values

Billionaire Michael Steinhardt Surrenders $70 Million In Stolen Art, Receives First-Ever Lifetime Ban From Acquiring Antiquities

TOPLINE Shares of Tesla, one of the past year&#8217;s best-performing stocks, continued to rack up massive losses Tuesday after Chief Executive Elon Musk over the weekend sparked concerns that he would sell 10% of his stake in the electric car maker, casting doubts on the long-term viability of the stock’s meteoric gains.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



After falling nearly 5% on Monday, shares of Tesla plummeted another 12% Tuesday to $1,023.50, pushing the firm’s market capitalization down by about $140 billion and marking the stock’s worst one-day drop since falling 21% on Sept. 8, 2020.



Fueling concerns on Tuesday, storied hedge fund investor Michael Burry, who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/opinion/04burry.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">famously predicted</a>&nbsp;the housing bubble that sparked the Great Recession,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/the-big-short-investor-michael-burry-says-elon-musk-may-want-to-sell-tesla-stock-to-cover-his-personal-debts-and-compares-the-current-market-to-the-dutch-tulip-bubble/ar-AAQuZMw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">emerged</a>&nbsp;from a Twitter hiatus to say Musk “NEEDS to sell” to help personal service loans he’s taken using Tesla shares as collateral.



Though Musk remains the richest person in the world, his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/">fortune</a>&nbsp;tanked by about $33.7 billion Tuesday,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/11/09/elon-musks-fortune-plunges-by-nearly-29-billion-tuesday-as-tesla-shares-slide/">falling</a>&nbsp;to $271 billion and racking up two-day losses of nearly $50 billion.



Triggering the two-day stock decline, Musk on Saturday&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1457064697782489088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1457064697782489088%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fembedly.forbes.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Dcfc0fb0733504c77aa4a6ac07caaffc7schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Felonmusk%2Fstatus%2F1457064697782489088image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3D8804248494c144f5b4765c41f66c6ed5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">called</a>&nbsp;on Twitter users to help decide whether he should sell 10% of his roughly 23% stake in Tesla in response to a short-lived proposal in Congress that would have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/10/27/new-billionaire-wealth-tax-targeting-assets-of-700-richest-americans-unveiled-heres-how-the-democratic-plan-would-work/">taxed</a>&nbsp;billionaires’ unrealized stock gains to help curb tax avoidance among the ultrawealthy.



Despite the selloff, analysts at both Wedbush and Jefferies increased their Tesla price targets on Monday to $1,800 and $1,400, respectively, with Wedbush’s Dan Ives saying the stock could soar as much as 65% over the next year thanks to better-than-expected profit margins unveiled in the third quarter.



But other analysts aren’t so sure: Tesla stock holds an average price target of $810 based out of 35 firms issuing such guidance, according to Bloomberg, representing about 25% downside to Tuesday’s closing price.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



$1 trillion.&nbsp;That’s Tesla’s market value after the two-day plunge. Shares have slipped nearly 17% from an all-time high on Thursday, but are still up 150% over the past year, compared to 32% for the S&amp;P 500.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Musk’s weekend tweets sparked investor concerns that Tesla’s stock could struggle to hold on to its recent gains amid a massive liquidation after the poll&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2021/11/07/elon-musks-twitter-followers-vote-for-him-to-sell-10-of-tesla-stock/">closed</a>&nbsp;with nearly 58% of the more than 3.5 million respondents voting in support of the proposal. Musk, who pledged in a separate tweet to “abide by the results of [the] poll,” owns about 23% of Tesla’s total shares. On Monday, Ives said investors should not be “overly concerned about” the possible transaction because it was already expected that Musk would sell about 6% of his stake to help pay a big tax bill coming due from stock options set to expire next August. In a note, Oanda analyst Ed Moya also chalked up Musk’s motivations to the impending tax bill.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



“We would rather Musk rip the Band-Aid off now and sell this portion of stock rather than it lingering over the next year and feeding into any bear thesis,” Ives said Monday.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



Since Tesla went public on the Nasdaq exchange in 2010, Musk has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2021/11/07/heres-how-much-elon-musk-would-pay-in-taxes-if-he-sells-10-of-his-tesla-stock/?sh=5c90d8c1115a">only sold</a>&nbsp;stock twice. In July 2010, Musk sold slightly more than 1.4 million shares for $24 million, and in 2016, he sold another 2.7 million shares for about $593 million.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/11/09/elon-musks-fortune-plunges-by-nearly-29-billion-tuesday-as-tesla-shares-slide/">Elon Musk’s Fortune Plunges By Nearly $29 Billion Tuesday As Tesla Shares Slide</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2021/11/07/heres-how-much-elon-musk-would-pay-in-taxes-if-he-sells-10-of-his-tesla-stock/">Here&#8217;s How Much Elon Musk Would Pay In Taxes If He Sells 10% Of His Tesla Stock</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2021/11/07/elon-musks-twitter-followers-vote-for-him-to-sell-10-of-tesla-stock/">Elon Musk&#8217;s Twitter Followers Vote For Him To Sell 10% Of Tesla Stock</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisakim/2021/11/06/elon-musk-says-hell-sell-10-of-his-tesla-stock-if-twitter-users-vote-for-him-to/">Elon Musk Says He&#8217;ll Sell 10% Of His Tesla Stock If Twitter Users Vote For Him To</a> (Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/"></a>By Jonathan Ponciano, Forbes Staff

Tesla Stock Wipes $140 Billion In Worst One-Day Decline This Year After Elon Musk Teases Massive Sale

Earlier this week, while Bezos was in Glasgow at the COP26 climate summit, he sold more than $2 billion worth of Amazon shares. The sale came as Bezos, the world’s second richest person, promised in a speech at the summit that he will spend&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sofialottopersio/2021/11/02/billionaire-jeff-bezos-takes-stage-at-cop26-to-pledge-2-billion-towards-nature-conservation/?sh=41e3a18c782c">$2 billion from his Earth Fund</a>&nbsp;on restoring nature and transforming food systems.&nbsp;



“We must conserve what we still have, we must restore what we’ve lost, and we must grow what we need to live without degrading the planet for future generations to come,” Bezos said during his talk in Glasgow.



The sale, after accounting for capital gains taxes Bezos likely owes, barely changes his net worth. As of midday Thursday, Bezos is worth $199.4 billion,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates. He trails the number one richest, Elon Musk (worth an estimated $317 billion), by about $118 billion.&nbsp;



Bezos has sold more than $8.8 billion worth of Amazon stock this year. Since taking Amazon public in 1998, the founder of the e-commerce giant has sold some $29 billion worth of Amazon shares,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;calculates; his stake in the company has gone from 42% in 1997 to just under 10% currently. Last year&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/06/24/heres-how-much-money-jeff-bezos-has-reaped-from-selling-amazon-stock/?sh=62bf2e63389a">he unloaded $10 billion worth</a>&nbsp;of his Amazon stake.



In July, Bezos gave up the role of Amazon CEO but has stayed on as the company’s chairman. Since then he’s shifted his focus to his rocket company, Blue Origin, and has made several announcements about philanthropic gifts. In September he announced a $1 billion pledge toward conservation efforts.&nbsp;MORE FOR YOU<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2021/09/23/evergrande-chairman-hui-ka-yan-has-been-paid-8-billion-in-cash-while-property-developer-piled-on-debt/">Evergrande Chairman Hui Ka Yan Has Been Paid $8 Billion In Cash While Property Developer Piled On Debt</a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2021/09/26/walter-scott-jr-warren-buffetts-longtime-friend-and-business-partner-dead-at-90/">Walter Scott Jr., Warren Buffett’s Longtime Friend And Business Partner, Dead At 90</a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2021/09/25/democrat-on-powerful-house-ways-and-means-committee-apparently-violated-stock-trade-rules/">Democrat On Powerful House Ways And Means Committee Apparently Violated Stock-Trade Rules</a>



Amazon stock has more than doubled in value since the beginning of 2019; it’s risen about 6% since early January 2021.



A spokesperson for Jeff Bezos at Amazon declined to comment regarding the share sales.



By Kerry A. Dolan, Forbes Staf

Amazon Unveils Its First Smartphone

Jeff Bezos Just Sold $2 Billion Worth Of Amazon Stock

<p id="h-the-company-is-at-a-standoff-with-the-modi-government-which-wants-musk-to-commit-to-building-electric-vehicles-locally-before-providing-subsidies-or-waiving-tariffs-that-make-importing-teslas-prohibitively-expensive">The company is at a standoff with the Modi government, which wants Musk to commit to building electric vehicles locally before providing subsidies or waiving tariffs that make importing Teslas prohibitively expensive.



by&nbsp;Aayushi Pratap&nbsp;and&nbsp;Alan Ohnsman



AFP PHOTO/ROBERTO SCHMIDT/PATRICK PLEUL/DPA-ZENTRALBILD/GETTY IMAGESGETTY IMAGES. DESIGN BY FORBES



When Tesla opened pre-orders&nbsp;for its Model 3 electric sedan in India in 2016, Arun Bhat, a businessman in the southern city of Bengaluru and an ardent Elon Musk fan, was among the first in the country to pre-book his dream car. Bhat even got rid of four luxury vehicles to make space for it.&nbsp;



“I thought Tesla would launch in India in the next couple of years,” Bhat says. “I just love the product and the minimalist interior.” Five years later, his wait continues.



The world’s most valuable automaker, with a market cap now topping $1 trillion that makes Musk the richest person in history, is at a high point, both in profit and global sales this year. The company has a shot at delivering a record 1 million electric vehicles worldwide in 2021. Yet after years of floating the idea of selling Teslas in India, Musk has yet to figure out how to do that, even as his focus on the market intensifies. In recent weeks the company has stepped up its push,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-lobbies-modis-office-india-slash-taxes-before-it-enters-market-sources-2021-10-20/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">led by the company’s local policy chief, Manuj Khurana</a>, to get a waiver of steep import fees that would almost double the price of imported Teslas. Instead, the Modi government wants Tesla to commit to local production.



India&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href="https://vahan.parivahan.gov.in/makermodel/vahan/dashboard.xhtml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ministry of Road Transport and Highways</a>&nbsp;approved four Tesla variants for local sale earlier this year. And although Tesla has yet to announce a formal plan for India, it’s already secured retail space in Mumbai, registered an office in Bengaluru and is making key hires to support sales in the country. For now, things are at an impasse. Setting up local manufacturing would take at least a year and a hefty investment from Tesla, and starting with sales of imported vehicles is a non-starter without a tariff waiver. India’s “import duties are the highest in the world by far of any large country!” Musk told a local&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1418641920595791872?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fan on Twitter</a>&nbsp;in July. Without waiver relief, India’s import tariff means that a Tesla Model 3, which starts at about $44,000 in the U.S. would have to sell for about $80,000 in India for the company to turn a profit, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cardekho.com/cars/Tesla" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">local estimates</a>.&nbsp;



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“India’s import duties are the highest in the world by far of any large country!”—Elon Musk via Twitter</blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



But that’s not the only hurdle. There’s limited electric vehicle charging infrastructure, a lack of significant incentives for electric car buyers and India’s road infrastructure presents challenges. Despite a massive population of 2.2 billion people, India is also a relatively small auto market, with sales of fewer than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ibef.org/industry/india-automobiles.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">3.5 million passenger and commercial autos in 2020</a>. There’s even less demand for both EVs and luxury autos. Only about 5,000 battery-powered vehicles were purchased in India last year, such as those made by Bangalore-based Mahindra Electric, accounting for less than 0.5% of total sales.



“It’s like what they used to say about China: ‘a billion people without money is not a market,’” says Michael Dunne, a long-time analyst and advisor on the auto industry in Asia who runs San Diego-based consultancy&nbsp;<a href="https://www.zozogo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Zozo Go</a>. “That&#8217;s kind of where we are with India. You have an active concentration of wealth and then everybody else who&#8217;s just scraping by. The median average price of a new car sold in India is going to be less than $10,000—a lot less than a Tesla.”



So why bother? Tesla is growing quickly throughout the world, expanding production and sales in China, awaiting German government permission to start building electric vehicles at its Giga Berlin plant and preparing to make Teslas in Austin, Texas.&nbsp;



India, although it’s the world’s second-most populous country, isn’t a particularly attractive market today, but it has a growing, tech-savvy middle class. And like China, its consumer market has massive long-term potential. India’s government is also starting to take steps to encourage EV sales to curb toxic emissions, offering buyers enticements including lower registration fees and road taxes—though it isn’t offering the kinds of incentives seen in the U.S. and Europe that can knock thousands of dollars off the purchase price.&nbsp;



Geopolitical tension between India and China is a further complication as Tesla lobbies the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-lobbies-modis-office-india-slash-taxes-before-it-enters-market-sources-2021-10-20/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Modi government</a>&nbsp;for tariff relief. Road and Transportation Minister Nitin Gadkari has warned the carmaker against shipping vehicles built at its Shanghai plant for sale in India, telling Musk to build locally. “You should manufacture electric cars in India and also export cars from India,” he said in media interviews this month. If Musk agrees to do that, Gadkari said he assured the CEO that Tesla will receive significant government support.&nbsp;



Mercurial billionaire Musk has teased the possibility of Indian production—as an enticement for a tariff waiver. “If Tesla is able to succeed with imported vehicles, then a factory in India is quite likely,” Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1418656085267865602?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted in July</a>. But the Modi government hasn’t bent in its demand for the company to commit to local production before it considers a waiver or subsidies. Tesla didn’t respond to email inquiries on the matter, and Tesla executives didn’t provide an update on the company’s plans for the country during its quarterly earnings call in October.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“You (Musk) should manufacture electric cars in India and also export cars from&nbsp;India”.–Nitin Gadkari, India’s Road and Transportation Minister</blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



India would be a compelling base to build vehicles for other markets Musk has yet to enter, including much of Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, says Dunne of Zozo Go. Tesla may want to follow the path of Hyundai Motor, which has turned its Indian operations into a massive source of exports, shipping&nbsp;<a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/auto/cars/story/hyundai-exports-2020-21-creta-venue-i20-verna-nios-others-1791729-2021-04-16" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">more than a 1 million cars and crossovers to 88 international markets</a>&nbsp;during its last fiscal year.&nbsp;&nbsp;



In the years to come an Indian export base could also become “a counterbalance or counterweight to all the eggs (Musk) currently has placed in China,” Dunne says.



Despite some eager local fans, auto analyst Bakar Sadik Agwan with GlobalData in Hyderabad, India, sees significant local hurdles for Tesla. Notably, there are so few charging stations that using a Tesla to travel between cities will be impossible unless the company sets up its own network. “They will need a strong sales network, they need a service network and as well as they need their own charging infrastructure,” says Agwan.&nbsp;



Pricing is also a big hurdle. In the U.S. the cheapest Tesla Model 3 starts at $40,000. Even if Musk gets a tariff waiver, that&#8217;s too expensive for the vast majority of locals, putting Tesla in the luxury car bracket. In 2020 Indians bought just 30,000 luxury vehicles, Agwan says.



As a result, Tesla might sell fewer than 150 cars in its first five years in India, according to Soumen Mandal, a Counterpoint Technology Market Research analyst in Gurugram, India.



Local roads are yet another challenge. Many aren’t mapped on GPS and traffic in dense cities is often blocked—in some places by stray&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-08-23/stray-cattle-india-get-glow-dark-horns-prevent-crashes-vehicles" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cattle and dogs</a>. Tesla’s Autopilot feature “where you just plug in the address from point A to point B won&#8217;t work in India,” says Jay Shah, a businessman in Ahmedabad in western India who has also pre-booked his Tesla. “The roads are not marked, there are animals on the road, there are two-wheelers on the roads, so it is next to impossible.”



Long-time Tesla fan Bhat is optimistic he’s close to finally getting his vehicle. (He’s now more interested in a Model Y compact SUV than the Model 3 he pre-ordered.) To ensure that Musk knows he’s got local support, Bhat created a Twitter page with fellow enthusiast Nikhil Chaudhary to “pester” their hero and share the latest on Tesla’s India plans. In 2020, when other fans asked Musk on Twitter whether there was progress on the local launch, the American CEO replied “next year for sure.” The phrase has become an inside joke between Bhat and Chaudhary.



Even if Bhat has to pay a steep price for his Tesla, he says it will be worth it was given the long-term fuel savings. But mainly he just really wants one.&nbsp;



“We have everything figured out,” Bhat says. “Only the car is missing.”<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/aayushipratap/"></a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/aayushipratap/">Aayushi Pratap</a>.

Billionaire Elon Musk Receives Axel Springer Award

Tesla’s India Fans Are Eager To Buy Elon Musk’s Cars, But Politics Is Getting In The Way

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Shares of Tesla started reversing a recent rally Tuesday morning after Chief Executive Elon Musk suggested a massive deal with bankrupt car-rental company Hertz, which helped push Tesla into a rarefied group of firms worth more than $1 trillion, has yet to be finalized—seemingly contradicting an announcement last week that helped the company add more than $300 billion in market value.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Tesla stock fell as much as 4% Tuesday morning after closing at a record high $1,208 on Monday, putting the company on track to lose $42 billion in market value and ending a week of straight gains.



The dip started after Musk, 50,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1455351085170823169?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;overnight he&#8217;d &#8220;like to emphasize&#8230; no contract has been signed&#8221; with Hertz yet, responding to a user touting—and praising Musk for—Tesla&#8217;s recent stock gains.



&#8220;Hertz deal has zero effect on our economics,&#8221; Musk added, without mentioning shares of Tesla have skyrocketed nearly 33% since Hertz&nbsp;<a href="https://newsroom.hertz.com/2021-10-25-Hertz-Invests-in-Largest-Electric-Vehicle-Rental-Fleet-and-Partners-with-Seven-Time-Super-Bowl-Champion-Tom-Brady-to-Headline-New-Campaign" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a>&nbsp;an order of 100,000 vehicles by the end of 2022 as part of a bid to electrify its fleet of rental cars, representing the carmaker&#8217;s largest order ever, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.



Tesla and Hertz did not immediately respond to&nbsp;Forbes&#8216; request for comment.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Tesla&#8217;s Hertz-fueled surge has helped make it more valuable than social media giant Facebook and even propelled the S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq, which both count the carmaker among its largest constituents, to new highs over the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/11/01/dow-sp-post-new-record-highs-as-investors-await-federal-reserves-stimulus-decision/">past week</a>. In the United States, only Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google-parent Alphabet are worth more than Tesla, which still commands nearly $1.2 trillion in market value. Hertz&#8217;s order would represent about 20% of the nearly 500,000 vehicles Tesla sold last year.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-surprising-fact">SURPRISING FACT</h2>



Despite falling Tuesday, Tesla shares are still up about 60% this year, compared to 25% for the S&amp;P.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



$315 billion. That&#8217;s how much&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/10/26/elon-musk-nearing-300-billion-fortune-is-the-richest-person-in-history/">Musk</a>&nbsp;was worth after Tesla&#8217;s record high on Monday, making him not only the richest person in the world—but also the richest person&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;has ever tracked. Before Tuesday, Musk&#8217;s fortune had grown by about $85 billion since the Hertz deal was announced.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/10/26/elon-musk-nearing-300-billion-fortune-is-the-richest-person-in-history/">Elon Musk, Nearing $300 Billion Fortune, Is The Richest Person In History</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/10/26/dow-and-sp-hit-new-record-highs-as-tesla-adds-to-its-massive-rally/">Dow And S&amp;P Hit New Record Highs As Tesla Adds To Its Massive Rally</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/10/25/tesla-amasses-1-trillion-in-market-value-after-hertz-places-biggest-electric-vehicle-order-ever/">Tesla Eclipses $1 Trillion In Market Value After Hertz Places Biggest Electric Vehicle Order Ever</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/11/01/heres-why-ferrari-not-tesla-is-morgan-stanleys-favorite-electric-vehicle-stock/">Here&#8217;s Why Ferrari—Not Tesla—Is Morgan Stanley&#8217;s Favorite Electric Vehicle Stock</a> (Forbes)



 By Jonathan Ponciano, FORBES AFRICA

Category: Billionaires

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