The average age of a billionaire may be 66 but a lucky few reach the milestone before they even hit 30. However, these individuals won’t be able to claim any credit for their fortunes—every billionaire on earth under the age of 30 inherited their wealth.
That’s according to Forbes‘ billionaires list for 2024, which features 15 individuals with 12-figure wealth aged 30 or under—who have a combined fortune worth nearly $45 billion.
The eye-watering sum, and the fact that these riches are handed down, is an indicator at the top of the ladder of the incoming “great wealth transfer.”
According to property broker Knight Frank’s 2024 Wealth Report, some $90 trillion in assets will move down the generations over the next few decades, making affluent millennials “the richest generation in history.”
While millennials are expected to be five times richer in 2030 than they were approaching the beginning of the decade, those at the top of the wealth tree are likely to see their fortunes catapult even further.
Of the 15 individuals on the 30-or-younger list, eight are either newly minted billionaires or have seen their wealth grow in the past 12 months.
Only two young billionaires saw their fortunes drop, however; the pair—Kim Jung-youn and her older sister, Kim Jung-min—have their fortunes tied to the same company: global investment firm NXC.
The youngest person on the rich list is 19-year-old university student Livia Voigt.
The Brazilian heiress is one of the largest individual shareholders of electrical engineering giant WEG, which was cofounded by her grandfather, who died in 2016.
Voigt and her older sister, 26-year-old Dora Voigt de Assis, each have a fortune worth $1.1 billion.
Meet the richest under-30s in the world
Ultrawealthy siblings appear elsewhere on the list courtesy of Irish brothers Zahan and Firoz Mistry.
The brothers, aged 25 and 27 respectively, sit on $4.9 billion each, courtesy of their family’s 18.4% stake in Tata Sons.
The duo, who live in India, inherited their wealth from their late father, Cyrus Mistry, who died in 2022 after a car crash near Mumbai.
Three of the six Del Vecchio children also appear on the list: 19-year-old Clemente, 22-year-old Luca, and 28-year-old Leonardo. Each has a fortune of $4.7 billion courtesy of their 12.5% stake in Luxembourg-based holding company Delfin, run by their late father, the senior Leonardo del Vecchio.
Once Italy’s second-richest man, Del Vecchio built an empire in eyewear with a 32% stake in eyewear giant Essilor Luxottica—a producer of designer sunglasses—per Reuters.
Norway’s Katharina Andresen, 28, and her younger sister Alexandra, 27, have slightly differing fortunes, with the former worth $1.7 billion and the latter $1.6 billion.
The sisters each inherited 42% of Ferd, an investment company controlled by the sibling’s father, Johan H. Andresen.
Both sisters sit on the board of directors at Ferd; they are the sixth generation of their family to become company owners.
Continuing a trend of young European billionaires is Germany’s Kevin David Lehmann, who owns 50% of his nation’s biggest drugstore, dm, and French 22-year-old Remi Dassault, who is heir to an aerospace and software empire after his name.
Germany is also home to 29-year-old Sophie Luise Fielmann and her $2.7 billion fortune—who appeared on the list for the first time courtesy of the majority shareholding position she has in her late father’s business, eyewear company Fielmann AG.
The eldest individual who scrapes into the 30-and-under category is salmon magnate Gustav Magnar Witzoe, who was gifted a stake worth nearly half the Salmar ASA business by his father in 2013.
Salmar ASA is one of the world’s largest salmon producers and was founded by the senior Gustav Witzoe in 1991.
Billionaire nepo babies set to inherit $5.2 trillion over next 20 years
And the trend is only set to continue.
UBS’s Billionaire’s Ambitions report published in November 2023 found that more than 1,000 billionaires are expected to hand down approximately $5.2 trillion to their children over the next 20 years.
It’s a behavior that will shape the economy, said Benjamin Cavalli, head of strategic clients at UBS Global Wealth Management: “The next generation has fresh views about business, investing, and philanthropy, redirecting large pools of private wealth to new business opportunities arising from the times we live in.
“Engineering a smooth succession will require founders and their families to do things differently, more than ever discovering common values and purpose to navigate a way forward that appeases all generations and allows them to continue building their legacies.”
