Vanishing shares, fraud allegations and crashing stocks helped make 107 people billionaires no more.
The world’s billionaire club has never been more crowded, reaching a record 3,028 members in 2025. Still, as in 2024, about a quarter of the list saw their net worth shrink compared to the previous year. For 107 entrepreneurs, investors and heirs on last year’s list, the drop was steep enough to knock them out of the three-comma club altogether.
Billionaires who tumbled off the ranking include the tycoons behind several internationally renowned brands, such as Koo Bon-sik, an heir to the Korean LG electronics fortune; Shutterstock founder Jonathan Oringer; former Merck & Co. chairman and CEO Roy Vagelos; Thierry Cruanes, cofounder and chief technical officer of cloud-based data storage company Snowflake; and two French automotive heirs: Robert Peugeot and Marie-Hélène Peugeot-Roncoroni.
China (including Hong Kong and Macau) saw the most billionaire drop-offs this year amid the country’s ongoing economic slowdown, with 22 names disappearing from the list (though that’s far less than last year’s staggering 133 drop-offs). Brazil shed the second-most billionaires (15), followed by India with 14. Only nine Americans who were on the 2024 list did not make the 2025 ranking, despite the U.S. having nearly twice as many billionaires as the next-closest nation. (An additional 32 billionaires died over the past year, and a 33rd passed away after Forbes went to press with this year’s list.)
Just like last year, nearly one in four drop-offs came from the manufacturing industry, which was hit the hardest of any sector, with 27 drop-offs. Among them are Manny Stul, whose Australian toymaker is known for its Shopkins collectibles, and Indian textile tycoon Rameshchandra Jain. The finance and investments sector and the technology industry tied for the second-most drop-offs, with 12 apiece. This includes Sweden’s Harry Klagsbrun and Lennart Blecher of publicly traded private equity giant EQT AB, as well as China’s James Peng, whose autonomous driving company Pony.ai went public on the Nasdaq in November 2024. Its market cap now stands at $3.2 billion, down from an $8.5 billion valuation after a 2022 funding round.
Thirty-two of the drop-offs were one-hit wonders, falling from the ranking after making it for the first time in 2024. Among them: Fernando Masaveu Herrero, the fifth-generation leader of Spanish conglomerate Corporacion Masaveu, and Shunsaku Sagami, founder and CEO of Japanese advisory firm M&A Research Institute.
Here are some of the highest-profile people who lost their billionaire status this year.
NET WORTHS ARE AS OF MARCH 7, 2025.
Nicolas Puech
Net Worth: Unknown (down from $15.6 billion on the 2024 list) | Source of Wealth: Fashion & Retail | Citizenship: France
The fifth-generation descendant of Thierry Hermès first became the center of a complex saga involving his wealth in 2023, announcing plans to adopt his middle-aged former gardener and handyman in order to bequeath him at least half of his fortune. Doing so would have involved severing ties with the Isocrates Foundation, the charitable organization Puech established in 2011, which was originally designated as the primary beneficiary of his estate. Further convoluting matters, Puech alleged that his Hermès shares had vanished and that his then-financial adviser, Eric Freymond, had sold the shares without his knowledge. He lost a court battle over the matter last summer33, but still maintains that his shares are missing. The situation is even further complicated by the potential involvement of Bernard Arnault, head of LVMH and Europe’s richest person, who previously attempted a takeover of Hermès beginning in 2010. This has led some of Puech’s family members to believe that he secretly sold some of his shares to Arnault as part of Arnault’s botched buyout effort. A number of related legal proceedings are ongoing.
Candido Pinheiro Koren de Lima & family
Net Worth: $900 billion (down from $2.3 billion) | Source of Wealth: Fashion & Retail | Citizenship: Brazil
It was a rough year for the founder of hospital network and health insurance provider Hapvida. Shares of the Brazil-based business lost nearly half their value, as the company dealt with accounting issues, debt renegotiations and increased judicial scrutiny of the Brazilian healthcare system. That, plus the Brazilian real’s depreciation against the dollar, made a huge dent in Pinheiro Koren de Lima’s fortune. Not to mention that Forbes is no longer crediting him with stock held by his ex-wife, whom he divorced in 2023.
Li Liufa & family
Net Worth: Less than $1 billion (down from $2 billion) | Source of Wealth: Diversified | Citizenship: China
In April 2024, shares of Tianrui Group, the Chinese state-backed cement and steel conglomerate Li chairs, mysteriously plunged by 99% in a 15 minute trading window, due in part to a margin call that forced Li to dump nearly 5% of the company’s stock onto the open market, accounting for nearly half the day’s trading volume. Trading resumed in December, after being halted for eight months while the company investigated the situation, but the initial cause of the crash remains unclear, and the stock is still trading at just 5% of its value from last March.
Somphote Ahunai
Net Worth: Less than $1 billion (down from $1.6 billion) | Source of Wealth: Energy | Citizenship: Thailand
The founder of Thai renewable energy company Energy Absolute saw his fortune peak at $4 billion in 2022. But shares have tumbled since, losing 93% of their value since last year’s list, amid concerns about debt taken on to fund an ambitious expansion into electric vehicles and energy storage. Somphote was forced to sell shares to meet a margin call in June 2024. Two weeks later, Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission accused him and two others of fraud involving the receipt of improper benefits via procurement contracts, prompting Somphote to resign as a director and CEO5=. He has denied the accusations and said he’ll cooperate fully with the ongoing investigation to prove his innocence.
Sara Liu
Net Worth: Less than $1 billion (down from $1.5 billion) | Source of Wealth: Technology |
Citizenship: U.S.
Liu cofounded server and storage maker Supermicro in 1993 with her husband, Charles Liang. While Liang, who owns more stock, is still worth an estimated $2 billion. Both have been victims of Supermicro’s sinking stock price, which is down 70% since last year’s list. The company delayed the filing of its financial statements for fiscal year 2024, after short-seller Hindenburg Research released a report accusing SuperMicro of accounting manipulation, self-dealing and sanctions evasion in August. The company’s auditor, Ernst & Young, resigned in October, despite Liang issuing a statement a month earlier that characterized Hindenberg’s report as false, misleading and inaccurate.
Lisa Su
Net Worth: Less than $1 billion (down from $1.3 billion) | Source of Wealth: Technology | Citizenship: U.S.
In December, Su was named Time’s CEO of the Year, after leading semiconductor firm Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) through one of the greatest turnarounds in the history of the tech industry. Shares are up almost 3,000% since she took over as chief executive in 2014, but the stock has lost nearly half of its value since last year’s list, as the chipmaker struggles to keep up with its red-hot rival Nvidia.
Chris Ellison
Net Worth: Less than $1 billion (down from $1.2 billion) | Source of Wealth: Metals & Mining | Citizenship: Australia
The price of spodumene, a lithium-rich mineral which Ellison’s Mineral Resources mines, crashing by 80% over the past two years, and the company’s high debt levels from an ambitious expansion of iron ore interests, already had him on shaky ground. Then, a tax minimization scandal sparked by an October Australian Financial Review report prompted a board investigation and the acceleration of his retirement. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has also launched a formal probe and is collaborating with the Australian Taxation Office. Ellison has stated that he is “deeply sorry for the events that have occurred” and acknowledges that he has made mistakes. The stock is down some 70% since last year’s list.