Hannah Elliott| Bloomberg News
Siblings Susanne Klatten and Stefan Quandt own almost half of BMW.
The billionaires are descendants of Guenther Quandt, who built a German industrial empire by, among other things, supplying weapons to the Nazis during World War II. In the years since, the family has established stakes in both Daimler-Benz AG and BMW.
Today, Klatten is Germany’s second-richest person, worth $18.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Quandt, who owns part of a logistics company and a homeopathic medicine company, has a net worth of $15.5 billion. Both are members of BMW’s supervisory board, making them the richest related pair deriving wealth from the automotive industry.
Here are the year’s richest people in cars:
1. Bill Gates
Company: AutoNation Inc.
Stake value: $914,554,258
Gates may not be the first person you would expect to see on a list of automotive wealth, but his share of car dealer AutoNation contributes to his overall fortune, most of which comes from Microsoft Corp. and Cascade Investment.
2. Larry Ellison
Company: Tesla Inc.
Stake value: $730,773,000 to $1 billion
Although he is the company’s second-largest shareholder, Ellison’s stake in Tesla is not the primary source of his wealth. He is the founder and main shareholder of the database company Oracle. The 75-year-old also owns the Indian Wells tennis event and the island of Lanai, Hawaii.
3. Elon Musk
Company: Tesla Inc.
Stake value: $8,307,076,693
Likely the most famous person invested in the segment — certainly the most colorful — the South African divides his time between Tesla, the maker of luxury electric vehicles, and SpaceX, a rocket manufacturer. Musk has always been a polarizing figure, garnering acclaim for his visionary leadership and criticism for failing to meet deadlines and engaging in public disputes.
4. Pallonji Mistry
Company: Tata Motors Ltd.
Stake value: $302,722,710
Mistry, 90, and his family are shareholders in Tata Sons, the holding company behind more than 100 affiliates with $100 billion in annual revenue, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The group employs 700,000 people in more than 100 countries.
5. Susanne Klatten
Company: BMW AG
Stake value: $8,763,327,399
Klatten, 57, is the second-richest person in Germany. She inherited her wealth from her father, German industrialist Herbert Quandt, who turned BMW from a struggling carmaker into one of the world’s largest manufacturers of luxury vehicles. Klatten recently said that dealing with the responsibility of inherited wealth is a misunderstood burden.
6. Stefan Quandt
Company: BMW AG
Stake value: $10,817,887,438
Quandt, 53, holds substantial stakes outside the family business, including homeopathic medicine company Biologische Heilmittel Heel; credit-card maker Entrust Datacard; and logistics company Logwin. His wealth derives from family matriarch Johanna Quandt, who died in 2015.
7. Li Shu Fu
Company No. 1: Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd.
Stake value: $38,988,918
Company No. 2: Zhejiang Geely Holding Group
Stake value: $10,520,321,446
Li, 56, founded Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, a maker of cars and related components, though he started his career manufacturing refrigerators. Geely’s $1.5 billion purchase of Volvo in 2010 was the largest ever overseas acquisition by a Chinese automaker.
8. Georg Schaeffler
Company No. 1: Continental AG
Stake value: $9,494,765,020
Company No. 2: Schaeffler AG
Stake value: $3,116,322,400
Shaeffler, 54, is chairman and majority owner of Schaeffler AG, which makes ball bearings and other auto supplies. He owns 80% of the company, while his mother, Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler-Thumann, owns the rest, according to company filings.
9. Blair Parry-Okeden
Company: Cox Automotive
Stake value: $1,738,541,209
Parry-Okeden, 69, is the granddaughter of James Cox, who founded Cox Enterprises in 1898. She owns almost 25% of the company, a $21 billion conglomerate that encompasses Kelley Blue Book and other auto brands.
10. James Kennedy
Company: Cox Automotive
Stake value: $1,738,541,209
An avid cyclist and hunter, Kennedy, 68, is the chairman of Cox Enterprises.
