A total of 359,560 billionaires live in New York. To give us an idea, that is the total population of Santander, Logroño and Teruel. Bilbao has fewer inhabitants than New York millionaires.
It’s like going for a walk around the Guggenheim and all the neighbors have the last name Botín, Ortega, Del Pino Calvo-Sotelo, Andic, Fluxá or Koplowitz. There are so many in Manhattan that most of them go unnoticed and, precisely for that reason, they live in the capital of money.
New York is the most expensive city in the world and also the richest, according to the latest ranking published by Henley & Partners and New World Wealth. He retains his throne for another year and it does not seem that he will lose it in the short term. It is followed, although at a distance, by the West Coast area, but They have had to group together several cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco and the surrounding areas of Silicon Valley) to timidly approach New York. Third place for Tokyo.
The first European city is London, which occupies fifth place in the general classification. Spain appears in 32nd place thanks to Madrid.
The US is home to 11 of the 50 richest cities in the world. Fifteen would be in Europe and the same number in Asia. But New York alone has almost as many millionaires as any of the two continents.
What’s more, the assets of all the rich people who live in Manhattan (with permission from Brooklyn, where some clueless person has also ended up) amounts to nearly three billion dollars, above what has been the GDP of Canada, Italy or Brazil. And twice that of Spain. If they agreed, they would have enough money to launch a hostile takeover bid for Nvidia and, with what was left over, buy the entire Ibex 35 if they wanted to.
Exaggerated? Elon Musk launched a takeover bid to take over Twitter because he didn’t like anyone putting limits on his right to freedom of expression. It cost US$44 billion for the then richest man on the planet to take over an entire social network to tweet as he pleased.
And it must be taken into account that his fortune does not even count in New York calculations, since the founder of Tesla resides somewhere in Texas, one of the areas that has risen the most in the ranking of the cities with the most millionaires and wealth in the world.
In New York there are many Hollywood celebrities. There is no shortage of pomp and places to be seen. However, its great attraction for large fortunes is just the opposite: the possibility of enjoying luxury in absolute anonymity.
Exclusive restaurants that are not at street level. Private clubs where, in addition to being a millionaire, you can only enter with a personal invitation. Skyscraper at the gates of Central Park with the best views of the city, but with access in the basements and back doors so that no one knows who is coming in and who is leaving.
The identity of its residents is one of the best kept secrets by the city’s doormen. Because discretion also has a price in New York.
None of the ten richest people in the world live in Manhattan. In fact, only sixty billionaires have their residence in this city, compared to almost 360,000 modest millionaires who do not accumulate assets greater than 1,000 million dollars. The great elites prefer Texas, Washington, Florida, Nebraska and, above all, the beaches of California.
In any of these states it is possible to find some of the largest fortunes on the planet, but not in New York. Their faces are so well known that no city in the world can guarantee their anonymity, So they choose to retire to mansions on the outskirts of big cities that offer them almost the same luxuries as New York, but where the headquarters of the business giants that are the reason for their large assets are also usually located.
Three exceptions that do not fulfill the stereotype one hundred percent: Elon Musk and Warren Buffett, who do not live in sumptuous palaces, but close to their companies; and Jeff Bezos, who has just moved to Miami, thousands of miles from Amazon headquarters, although in his case there is a mansion.
Specifically, three. He will demolish two to build a much larger one, and the third is for temporary living until his exclusive forever home is ready. In these cases, New York mansions are too small for them.
