The net worth of US business tycoon Warren Buffett has zoomed past the $100-billion mark, making him the sixth person of all time to make it to the elite club.

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For decades, the 90-year-old, also known as the ‘Oracle of Omaha’, was a fixture at the top of the world’s wealth rankings. However, in recent years, his position dipped as tech fortunes climbed and his hot hand cooled down.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman’s wealth rose to $100.4 billion on Wednesday. The $100 billion club features Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Bernard Arnault, and Mark Zuckerberg.

Buffett is known to be engaged in a multitude of charitable activities, having given over $41 billion, especially to the Gates Foundation as well as to his children’s foundations.

In 2010, he along with Gates had launched ‘Giving Pledge’, which urged billionaires to commit to donating at least half of their fortune to charitable organisations.

As per Forbes’ real-time billionaire ranking, only four other executives have a net worth higher than Buffett— Tesla CEO Musk ($165.1 billion), Amazon founder Bezos (US$179.6 billion), LVMH group director Arnault ($158.5 billion) and Microsoft co-founder Gates (US$125.6 billion). Having an assessed worth of $96.7 billion, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is in sixth place. Zuckerberg’s fortune had surpassed $100 billion for the first time in August 2020.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s collective treasure has grown fast, fuelled by central-bank policy, government stimulus and the rolling equity market.

In recent years, Buffett had been struggling to get big deals to spark the growth of Berkshire, the source of virtually all of his wealth. That was partially on account of the sheer size of the corporation. Over the past five years, it led to the underperformance of the S&P 500. However, in 2020, Buffett spent a record $24.7 billion on buybacks. He has already bought at least $4.2 billion worth of stock through mid-February.

Taking into consideration how much he donates, surpassing the $100-billion mark becomes all the more noteworthy. Since 2006, he has donated over $37 billion in Berkshire stock.

(Edited by : Aditi Gautam)