Richest Canadian is now wealthier than Bill Gates and joins '$100 billion club'
The richest person in Canada has already made hundreds of millions of dollars more than you have by the time your work day ends.
Forbes released its annual World’s Billionaires List, ranking the richest people in 2026, and it will make you feel more broke than ever.
“There has never been a better time to be a billionaire,” it reads. “They are richer than ever, worth a record $20.1 trillion, up $4 trillion from last year.”
The business magazine says this boom is thanks to the AI explosion, hot markets, and fiscal policies that are in favour of the one per cent.
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The usual suspects are on the list. Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk took the top spot with a staggering net worth of $839 billion, almost triple the amount he made in 2025.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg follow closely behind in fourth and fifth place with a net worth of $224 billion and $222, respectively.
They are part of a record 20 people in the world who are now in what Forbes calls the “$100 billion club,” and only one Canadian has recently joined that elite club.
The richest Canadian on the list is Changpeng Zhao, founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
@cz_binance/X
In 2026, he’s worth a whopping $112 billion, becoming a new addition to the 12-figure club. He even beat out Bill Gates by two spots on the billionaires ranking in 17th place.
The 49-year-old nearly doubled his net worth in the past year, despite several controversies.
In 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty to failing to implement anti-money laundering controls at Binance. He spent four months in prison and was released from custody on Sept. 27, 2024. Not only has he resigned as CEO, but Binance was fined US$4.3 billion.
CNN reported that U.S. authorities alleged that Binance enabled transactions for child sex abuse, narcotics, and terrorist financing. In October last year, the multi-billionaire was pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Born in Jiangsu, China, Zhao (also known as CZ) moved with his family to Vancouver in the late 1980s after hisĀ dad got a job at the University of British Columbia. According toĀ Bloomberg, he completed a computer science degree at McGill University in Montreal, and his interest in cryptocurrency was sparked after a discussion at a poker game in 2013. Zhao founded Binance in 2017, and by 2018, it was the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.
@cz_binance/X
Other notable Canadians that made the ranking of the richest billionaires in the world include British Columbia’s Jim Pattison, worth $12 billion in 255th place; Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke in 302nd place with a net worth of $10.7 billion; and several family members of the Thomson Canadian media dynasty.
Lululemon founder Chip Wilson is in 645th, with his net worth dropping from $6.8 billion to $6.5 billion in a span of two years.
Check out Forbes’ full ranking.