Multi-millionaire Elon Musk has climbed to the top spot of the world's richest people for the first time on Forbes' 2022 list, with a fortune estimated at $219 billion.

Musk was second on the list in 2021, but this year he leads the ranking, which is followed by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon with an estimated fortune of $171 billion.

According to Lusa, Frenchman Bernard Arnault (Louis Vuitton, 151,000 million dollars) and Americans Bill Gates, (founder of Microsoft, 129,000 million dollars) and Warren Buffet (118,000 million dollars) come next.

Musk, head of electric vehicle maker Tesla, is presented by Forbes as the man who "revolutionized transportation, both on land, with Tesla, and in space, with rocket maker SpaceX," according to Efe.

The South African-born businessman with multiple nationalities (South African, Canadian and US) has been in the news in recent days for acquiring a 9.2% stake in Twitter.

As usual, the Forbes 2022 list is dominated by men and North Americans, with eight of the top 10 places being occupied by figures matching this profile. The other two are Frenchman Bernard Arnault and Indian Mukesh Ambani, who occupies tenth place.