Billionaire Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, is now the richest man on earth with a net worth of $219 billion, according to the latest Forbes Billionaires List released on Wednesday.

With the net worth of the world’s wealthiest people slipping to $12.7tn due to the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Covid-19 and volatile stock markets caused wealth erosion, leading to 329 billionaires dropping out of the Forbes’ 2022 rich list, Musk’s recent acquisition of 73.4 million shares of Twitter, worth about $3 billion, making him the largest shareholder in the social media company, has shot him up the world billionaire list.

According to Forbes in its annual report, the present world billionaire listing of 2,668, is an all time-down from 2,755 last year.

Using stock prices and exchange rates from March 11 to calculate the net worth of the world’s richest people, it said it was not surprising that 329 people fell off the list.

“In all, 329 people fell off the billionaires list this year – the most since the 2009 financial crisis,” Forbes said in the report.

Musk, who has been appointed to Twitter’s board with his purchase of 9.2 percent stake in the microblogging platform, topped the Forbes list for the first time with a net worth of $219 billion, according to the report.

Oligarchs and Decacorns: Inside The World’s Billionaires List 2022 #ForbesBillionaires pic.twitter.com/CfWCxzVysv

— Forbes (@Forbes) April 6, 2022

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, fell to number two for the first time in four years due to a 3 percent drop in Amazon stock and increased charitable giving, which wiped $6bn from his net worth, the Forbes report said.

French luxury goods tycoon Bernard Arnault, who added $8bn to his fortune over the past year, remains the world’s third-richest person and rounding out the top five are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett with personal fortunes of $129bn and $118bn, respectively.

There were 236 newcomers added to the billionaire ranks this year, including pop star Rihanna, Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and venture capitalist Josh Kushner.

Though this is the first time Musk will be making the top of the Forbes’ list, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index had named him the world’s richest person at the end of 2021 with a personal fortune of $273.5bn.

These are the top 10 richest people in 2022, and their net worth

1. Elon Musk: $219bn

2. Jeff Bezos: $171bn

3. Bernard Arnault: $158bn

4. Bill Gates: $129bn

5. Warren Buffett: $118bn

6. Larry Page: $111bn

7. Sergey Brin: $107bn

8. Larry Ellison: $106bn

9. Steve Ballmer: $91.4bn

10. Mukesh Ambani: $90.7bn