Collison brothers worth an estimated €2.9bn each

Tech entrepreneur brothers Patrick and John Collison have again made it on to the Forbes billionaires' list, holding positions ahead of the club's longer-established Irish members such as Denis O'Brien and Dermot Desmond.

Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos (56) holds on to the top spot on the US magazine's 34th list of the world's wealthiest, despite his recent divorce leaving him $18 billion poorer at $113 billion (€104 billion).

Patrick (31) and John (29) Collison, who founded and run digital payments group Stripe, are worth $3.2 billion (€2.9 billion) each, according to Forbes, putting them at joint 616th on a list numbering almost 2,100.

That puts the Limerick-reared pair ahead of longer-established Irish business figures, including telecoms tycoon, Denis O’Brien (61), whose Digicel empire is currently negotiating with bond holders.

WhatsApp limits message forwarding to slow spread of misinformation

---

Tesla to expand lineup in China by offering Model 3 sedan

---

Apple buys Irish voice tech company Voysis to help improve Siri

---

Denis O’Brien may cede 49% of Digicel empire under debt write-down plan

---

Forbes pegs his net worth at $2.9 billion, putting him at 712th on its list. That places Mr O’Brien above investor Dermot Desmond (69), calculated to be worth $2 billion, earning him a ranking of 1,063rd.

Sharing that spot with him is John Armitage (60), the British-born founder and investment manager of Egerton Capital, whose wealth is also $2 billion. He became an Irish citizen two years ago.

Eugene Murtagh (77), founder of insulation maker Kingspan and father of its current chief executive Gene Murtagh, comes in at number 1,513 with a fortune of $1.4 billion.

The Republic's richest person is 90-year-old construction magnate, Pallonji Mistry, the Indian-born Irish citizen who controls engineering business, Shapoorji Pallonji Group and holds a stake in Tata Sons, one of India's biggest businesses. He is worth $11.1 billion, putting him 117th on the Forbes list.

John Grayken (63), founder of Dallas, Texas-based private equity business, Lone Star Funds, an active investor in the Republic is at 196 with $7.4 billion. Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Mr Grayken became an Irish citizen in 1999.

John Dorrance (76), heir to the Campbell's Soup fortune, is at 804 with $2.6 billion. His grandfather, John T Dorrance invented Campbell's formula for condensed soup.

Mr Dorrance’s relatives are still the company’s largest shareholders, but he sold his 10.5 per cent stake in the nineties and moved to the Republic.

Zoom fortune

Elsewhere on the list, Microsoft founder, Bill Gates (64)is at number two with $98 billion. Bernard Arnault (71), head of French luxury goods group LMVH, is at number three with $76 billion.

Eric Yuan (50), whose Zoom video-conferencing app has soared in popularity on the back of the Covid-19 crisis, is one of 178 new entrants to the Forbes list with a fortune of $5.5 billion.

Covid-19 has helped cut the number of billionaires in the world to 2,095 this year from 2,153 in 2019. Their total wealth has fallen to $8 trillion from $8.7 trillion over the last 12 months.

Kerry A Dolan, assistant managing editor of wealth with Forbes, said no one was immune to the "devastating impact" of coronavirus.

“The drop in the number of billionaires this year reflects the economic impact the pandemic is already having,” she said.