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Wiz office Photo: ToI
Photo: ToI
The Israeli founders of cloud security unicorn, Wiz, have been added to Forbes’ uber-exclusive roster of the world’s richest people, bringing the number of Israeli billionaires in 2024 to 36, up by six from last year.
With a net worth of about $1 billion each, Wiz co-founders Assaf Rappaport, 40, Yinon Costica, 41, Ami Luttwak, 40, and Roy Reznik, 35, were added to the list. They were joined by fellow newcomer Roy Mann, 45, co-founder of Israeli work management firm Monday.com, with a net worth of $1.3 billion, in the list released late on Tuesday. Hotel owner David Fattal made it back on the list with a net worth of $1.3 billion, after being demoted a year earlier.
The highest-ranked Israeli was Miriam Adelson, 78, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who was listed as the 53rd-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $32 billion. Adelson is from Israel, but Forbes placed her in the US in its annual ranking of the world’s richest people, since she holds American citizenship and is based in Las Vegas.
Israeli-born Eyal Ofer, 73, the head of Ofer Global Holdings, was ranked the wealthiest person in Israel, listed at 84th place globally with a fortune of $24 billion derived from assets in the real estate and shipping industries.
His brother, Idan Ofer, 68, is the second-richest Israeli, in 120th place with $15.8 billion, generated from shipping interests. The Ofer brothers are the sons of the late Israeli shipping tycoon Sammy Ofer, who was once Israel’s richest man.
Igor Bukhman, 42, and his younger brother Dmitri, 38, owners of the gaming giant Playrix, were ranked 272nd in the list with $9 billion.
Rounding off the top five in Israel is Teddy Sagi, 52, the founder of gambling software firm Playtech with a net worth of $6.4 billion, listed in 432nd place globally.
The richest person in the world was France’s Bernard Arnault, CEO of luxury goods giant LVMH, with a net worth of about $233 billion; followed by Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, with $195 billion; and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, with $194 billion.
US tech giants Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Steve Ballmer, as well as US investor Warren Buffet, were also in the top 10.
Forbes said there were a record 2,781 billionaires around the world this year, with combined assets worth $14.2 trillion. The surge in wealth has made 265 people, including Taylor Swift, NBA legend Magic Johnson, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, billionaires over the past year, up from 150 newcomers in 2023.
-Times of Israel
