13 Newly Crowned Media Billionaires on Forbes 2024 Rich List
Forbes’s 2024 World’s Billionaires list is out, and it includes 13 newcomers who are from the media and entertainment industry. The most exciting name is likely Taylor Swift, who currently boasts a net worth of $1.1 billion. She is also the only person who has made the list through earnings in music and performance alone, according to Forbes. Most billionaire musicians and actors have achieved their financial status through other businesses. Rihanna, for example, became a billionaire primarily through her stakes in Fenty Cosmetics and Savage X Fenty.
If you find yourself reading the same last name over and over again on the Forbes list, it’s because five of the newly crowned billionaires are all children of the late former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. They were launched into billionaire status after inheriting their father’s $6.8 billion stake in the media company Fininvest after he passed away in 2023.
Here are the 13 media and entertainment figures who are featured on the Forbes billionaires list for the first time: (Age information about Ling Tang and Maria Frias is unavailable.)
Marina Berlusconi, 57, media executive and heir: $2.1 billion
Marina is the president of her late father’s company Fininvest, which she joined in 1996.
Pier Silvio Berlusconi, 54, media executive and heir: $2.1 billion
Pier Silvio is the CEO of private television group MediaForEurope, which was also started by his father Silvio. He and Marina inherited most of their father’s wealth when he died.
Manoj Punjabi, 51, producer and media founder: $1.9 billion
Punjabi comes from a prominent entertainment family in Indonesia, where he was the 32nd richest person in 2023. He co-founded the production house MD Media, later rebranded to MD Pictures, with his wife and parents in 2002.
Ling Tang, mobile games investor: $1.5 billion
Tang is an investor in the mobile game maker AppLovin, with an 8 percent stake. AppLovin boasts a market cap of $24.9 billion.
Barbara Berlusconi, 39, media heir: $1.2 billion
Barbara doesn’t currently work for any of her late father’s businesses. She was CEO of the Italian professional football club AC Milan for four years from 2013 to 2017 until her father sold the team.
Eleonora Berlusconi, 37, media heir: $1.2 billion
Eleonora does not have a position in her father Silvio’s media company Fininvest. Until recently, she was the only sibling who didn’t have a seat on the company’s board. This changed in November 2023 when the company announced that she would join.
Luigi Berlusconi, 35, media heir: $1.2 billion
Luigi is the youngest Berlusconi sibling. He also does not work for any of his late father’s companies.
Maria Frias, journalist and newspaper heir: $1.2 billion
Frias owns a third of the Folha de S. Paulo, one of the most popular newspapers in Brazil. She inherited the paper from her late father Octávio Frias, who owned and operated it from 1962 until his passing in 2007. Her brother Luiz Frias is also a billionaire and owns the rest of the company.
Dick Wolf, 77, television writer and producer: $1.2 billion
Famous for creating the Law & Order franchise in the early 1990s, Wolf has benefited from the staying power of the original Law & Order series and its spinoffs, all produced through his company Wolf Entertainment.
Gyorgy Gattyan, 53, adult film site founder: $1.1 billion
The porn mogul founded the adulting camming website LiveJasmin in 2001, which is where he made most of his fortune.
Benny Suherman, 76, cinema co-founder: $1.1 billion
Suherman is the co-founder of Cinema XXI, Indonesia’s first cinema chain. He’s the 43rd richest person in Indonesia.
Taylor Swift, 34, singer and songwriter: $1.1 billion
It was the Eras tour and her music catalog that propelled Swift into billionaire status in 2023. According to Forbes, her wealth breakdown is $500 million from royalties, $500 million from her music catalog and $125 million from real estate.
Ric Elias, 57 or 58, digital media co-founder and CEO: $1 billion
Elias’ media company Red Ventures owns CNET and Best Colleges. He was already named a billionaire in 2021 by The New York Times, which reported that his company was worth $11 billion and he had a 20 percent stake. Elias pledged that same year to give half of his money away.