It’s not easy to make Forbes’ billionaires list. Some shoveled manure on their neighbors’ farms or slept in cars to get their start. Scores of others got a leg up from middle- or upper-class parents. But plenty of the planet’s super-rich took the shortest route to billions: they were born with them.

Roughly a third of the 2,781 people on the 2024 World’s Billionaires ranking inherited their vast wealth, or at least a big chunk of it, by Forbes’ calculations.

In all, these 934 heirs (good for 33.6% of the list) are worth a collective $5 trillion. Those figures are on the rise, up from 827 last year (or 31.3% of the list) worth $4.1 trillion. This lucky bunch owe their riches to everything from cement to candy bars, and used their resources and connections to attend elite schools, launch businesses of their own—or just sit back and collect the fat dividends and investment returns that come from being handed a ten-figure fortune.

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