The 2024 Forbes Billionaires List finds that the top 25 youngest billionaires of the world are all aged 33 or younger and have collectively amassing a staggering wealth of $110 billion. While this youth-centric trend signals a new era of wealth accumulation, a closer look reveals that a significant portion of these fortunes were inherited rather than self-made.
Topping the list of young billionaires under 30 are Zahan and Firoz Mistry, sons of the late Cyrus Mistry, whose combined wealth amounts to $9.8 billion ($4.9 billion each). The brothers, aged 25 and 27, inherited the fortune after their father, the former chairman of Tata Sons, died in a car accident in 2022.
The brothers, who are citizens of Ireland but live in Mumbai, inherited a portion of the family's 18.4% stake in Tata Sons, propelling them into the elite circle of young billionaires.
After working within various sectors of the family business for over 18 months, they assumed executive roles within the company in December 2022. Zahan Mistry is an alumnus of Yale University and Firoz Mistry studied at the University of Warwick.
The grandfather of the Mistry brothers, Pallonji Mistry, played a pivotal role in establishing the family's legacy in business. Their uncle, Shapoor Mistry, currently serves as the chairman of the family's Mumbai-based construction giant, the Shapoorji Pallonji Group.
In a move to alleviate debt pressures, the Mistry family plans to raise approximately $850 million by listing Afcons Infrastructure, a privately held construction and engineering firm.
However, the Mistry brothers are not the sole beneficiaries of inherited wealth among the 18 heirs of the list. Clemente Del Vecchio, a 19-year-old from Italy, inherited a substantial stake in EssilorLuxottica, the Italian-French eyewear conglomerate after his father died making him the youngest billionaire until now, when he was surpassed by Livia Voigt, a Brazilian student and heir of WEG, an electrical equipment manufacturer.
Vecchio is two months older than Voigt and her net worth is $1.1 billion.
Similarly, Sophie Luise Fielmann, a 29-year-old German heiress, inherited the reins of Fielmann AG, a prominent eyeglasses empire, from her late father, Günther Fielmann, who died in January.
The emergence of these young billionaires underscores a broader phenomenon known as "the great wealth transfer," wherein over 1,000 affluent individuals are projected to pass on more than $5.2 trillion to their heirs over the next two decades.
Only a handful of self-made tycoons, such as Evan Spiegel, 33, the man behind Snap, Ben Francis, 31, the entrepreneur propelling Gymshark, and Palmer Luckey, 31, the mind behind Oculus VR made it to the list where every billionaire under 30 has acquired their fortune through inheritance.
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