Two Estonians make Forbes world's rich list again
Wise co-founders Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus, both from Estonia, have made the freshly published Forbes World's Real-Time Billionaires list.
Käärmann, 45, was placed 1,913th at the time of writing, with a fortune of US$2.2 billion (around €1.9 billion).
Forbes notes he cofounded, with Hinrikus, cross-border payments startup TransferWise in 2011 and took it public as Wise in 2021 on the London Stock Exchange.
Käärmann and Hinrikus are Estonia's first-ever billionaires, who met while working in London and found they had a shared dislike of losing money to their banks in fees charged for sending money back home to Estonia.
Hinrikus, 43, placed 3,066th on the Forbes list, with a net worth of US$1.2 billion (approximated €1 billion).
Billionaires Peter Thiel and Richard Branson were early Wise investors, followed by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz and money manager Baillie Gifford, Forbes reports.
At the top of the list, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, with a fortune valued at US$839 billion, remains top after his wealth grew explosively—by $342 billion in the past year. Musk is followed by Google co-founders Larry Page (US$254.7 billion) and Sergey Brin (US$235 billion).
U.S. President Donald Trump placed 638th, with a net worth of US$6.3 billion.
Overall, the list of billionaires has a combined wealth of €20.1 trillion, Forbes notes, the highest total ever.
A record 3,428 entrepreneurs, investors, and heirs made it onto this year's Forbes World's Real-Time Billionaires list, 400 more than last year. The growth is largely thanks to the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI), as well as strong markets and favorable fiscal policies, Forbes reported.
The full list is here.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
