Warren Buffett is once again one of the five richest people in the world.
The legendary 91-year-old investor’s $117 billion fortune puts him behind only Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault and Bill Gates in the global wealth rankings, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Unlike the other members of the top five who have all lost money this year, Buffett’s fortune has grown by $7.8 billion in 2022. In comparison, Musk, the world’s richest man, has lost $62 billion, while Gates has lost a comparatively modest $12.5 billion.
Interestingly, it has been the loss of wealth by others rather than an increase in his own net worth that catapulted Buffett back into fifth place. Mark Zuckerberg, who had a net worth of more than $120 billion in January, has seen his fortune plummet by $54 billion as Facebook shares have been pummeled this year.
Other tech executive who were previously in the top 10, such as Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, would all be ahead of Buffett had they not taken substantial hits to their net worth thanks to the tumble in tech stocks this year.
Shares of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway are up more than 7% so far this year thanks largely to the investor’s belief in diversification. Though 44% of Berkshire’s portfolio is made up of Apple — which itself is down 10% this year — it is widely diversified and has allowed the firm to weather tech sell-offs.
Buffett has long recommended that investors put their money in index funds, which hold every stock in an index, making them automatically diversified. The S&P 500, for example, includes big-name companies like Apple, Coca-Cola and Google.
In 2017, Buffett told CNBC that for people looking to build their retirement savings, diversified index funds make “the most sense practically all of the time.”
“Consistently buy an S&P 500 low-cost index fund,” Buffett said. “Keep buying it through thick and thin, and especially through thin.”
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