Well. The world is full of people. More than half are women. A teeny bit more. Some are poor. Some are rich.
We are always hearing about the richest men on the planet. Like Elon Musk. And Jeff Bezos.
But what about the female side of things?
Well, here they are. The top five richest women on Earth.
1 Françoise Bettencourt Meyers
At the top of the richest women’s leader board is a French billionaire. She is the heiress and only daughter of Liliane Bettencourt. Her family owns the company L’Oréal. Like the beauty products, L’Oréal. Her mamma left her the whole shebang. Which was a net worth of about $39.5 billion after her death. And that has made Francoise Bettencourt Meyers one of the top 20 richest people in the world. These days, she has an estimated fortune of $59.3 billion. That makes her the big kahuna.
2 Alice Louise Walton
You know them by name. You’ve most likely been in one of their stores. The Waltons. Not the kind on Walton Mountain with Jim Bob and Mary Ellen. No, the shopping kind. The WalMart kind.
Alice Louise Walton, is the heir to the $45 billion fortune of Walmart Inc. She is the daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton and Helen Walton. Collectively, all the Walton kids have a ton of money. Alice shares that wealth with her siblings, so that makes her the second in the world’s richest women list.
3 Jacqueline Mars
She is the granddaughter of Frank C. Mars. He was the guy who founded the American candy company Mars Incorporated. Jacqueline Mars was his heiress. And as such, she was given grandpa’s net worth of $23.2 billion. She now owns an estimated one-third of Mars Incorporated, the world’s largest candy maker. They make Snickers Bars, M&Ms, Lifesavers, Combos, Twix, and so much more.
Despite being an American heiress, Jacqueline Mars has acquired her position as one of the richest women in the world also because she’s an investor.
4 Yang Huiyan
Yang Huiyan is China’s richest woman. She is also one of the world’s wealthiest people under 40. This is largely due to a stake in the Country Garden’s Holding transferred by her father, company founder Yang Guoqiang, in 2007. Yang now runs the company alongside him as co-chairman. I don’t even know what Country Garden is, but from a quick Google-ish, they look like real estate developers. In China.
5 Susanne Klatten
She is a German billionaire heiress and the daughter of Herbert Quandt. Susanne Klatten is renowned for saving BMW from bankruptcy. Her net worth was $20.9 billion in 2019, which makes her the richest woman in Germany and the 46th richest person in the world. I like a BMW, I’ll tell you. I drive one, when I drive.
So there they are. A lot of people would guess Oprah. She has 2.5 billion. Nothing to sneeze at, but nothing near the big dogs. Melinda Gates has 10.3 billion. Bill still holds the bulk of the Microsoft money.
To be honest, this list surprised me, except for Ms. Walton. I figured Walmart woman.
But, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers at the top of this list with L’Oréal. Who would have guessed that? However, I looked them up on Linkedin and found this: “Our 36 international brands include Kiehl’s, Lancôme, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, Ralph Lauren, Clarisonic, Maybelline New York, Essie, Kérastase, IT Cosmetics, Prada Beauty, Biotherm, Shu Uemura, Viktor&Rolf, Maison Martin Margiela, Urban Decay, Redken, Vichy, La Roche-Posay, Diesel, Garnier, L’Oréal Paris, and more.” They’ve got a lot going on under the hood.
In comparison, the richest men list changes almost daily. At the time of this writing, rank Elon Musk had $218.6 billion. Jeff Bezos was third at $155.9 billion.
Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around.
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“Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around.”
— Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey. Cabaret
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“A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.”
— W. C. Fields
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“There is a gigantic difference between earning a great deal of money and being rich.”
— Marlene Dietrich
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You’re a rich girl. But you’ve gone too far…
