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Who are the richest people in Switzerland in 2023?
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Who are the richest people in Switzerland in 2023?

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© 2025 IamExpat Media B.V.
© 2025 IamExpat Media B.V.
Apr 13, 2023
Jan de Boer

Editor at IamExpat Media

Jan studied History at the University of York and Broadcast Journalism at the University of Sheffield. Though born in York, Jan has lived most of his life in Zurich and has worked as a journalist, writer and editor since 2016. While he has plunged head-first back into life in Switzerland since returning to the country in 2020, he still enjoys a taste of home at pub quizzes and karaoke nights.Read more

The latest Real-Time Billionaires ranking by Forbes, reported by the Tages-Anzeiger, has revealed the richest people either born or living in Switzerland today. This year, a German citizen has taken the top spot, having amassed a 36 billion franc fortune.

Who is the richest person in Switzerland?

As of 2023, Klaus-Michael Kühne is the richest person in Switzerland with an estimated net worth of 36 billion francs. Despite being born in Hamburg, the 85-year-old has held a Swiss residence permit since 1975 and lives with his family in Schindellegi, Canton Schwyz.

Kühne made his billions through his logistics company, Kühne + Nagel. Since becoming a multi-billionaire, he has become a major shareholder in Lufthansa Group, Hapag Lloyd and the German football club Hamburger SV. Handelsblatt noted that Kühne’s wealth has more than doubled in recent years - mainly thanks to a logistics boom attributed to the COVID crisis.

Swiss shipping magnates now own largest cargo fleet in the world

Only one other Swiss resident made it into Forbes' top 100: the magazine's own "World’s Richest Self-Made Woman” Rafaela Aponte-Diamant. From her base in Geneva, and together with her husband Gianluigi, the pair own Swiss international company MSC - a firm which now owns the largest container fleet in the world by capacity. Together, they possess a fortune of 28,2 billion Swiss francs.

The first Swiss citizen on the Forbes list for this year was biotech entrepreneur and philanthropist Ernesto Bertarelli, with a net worth of 8,6 billion francs. The top 10 for Switzerland also played host to a famous - and infamous for expats - political and economic dynasty, with Magdalena Martullo-Blocher in fifth and Rahel Blocher in seventh.

Richest people in Switzerland and the world in 2023

In all, here are the 10 richest people who were born or live in Switzerland as of the time of writing (in billions of US dollars):

  1. Klaus-Michael Kühne (41)
  2. Rafaela Aponte-Diamant / Gianluigi Aponte (28,2)
  3. Ernesto Bertarelli (9,5)
  4. Ivan Glasenberg (9,1)
  5. Magdalena Martullo-Blocher (7,2)
  6. Guillaume Pousaz (7,2)
  7. Rahel Blocher (7,2)
  8. Thomas Schmidheiny (5,7)
  9. Michael Pieper (5,5)
  10. Thomas Straumann (5,3)

While these figures are eye-watering to most, they pale in comparison when compared to the overall list, with Kühne placing 28th, the Apontes ranking 43rd and Bertarelli in 209th. In all, the top 10 for this year were:

  1. Bernard Arnault & family (227,2)
  2. Elon Musk (187,6)
  3. Jeff Bezos (125,2)
  4. Larry Ellison (118,2)
  5. Bill Gates (109,7)
  6. Warren Buffett (109,3)
  7. Carlos Slim Helu & family (94,5)
  8. Michael Bloomberg (94,5)
  9. Larry Page (91,5)
  10. Steve Ballmer (91)

For more information, and to see who else made it onto the list, check out the Forbes website.

By Jan de Boer