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World's Billionaires 2012: Facebook has seven

Forbes' billionaires list has a total number of 1,226 listees this year. Seven of them are there thanks to Facebook, and they have a combined wealth of $28.7 billion.
Written by Emil Protalinski, Contributor

Forbes has released the 26th edition of its rich-beyond-belief list. The World's Billionaires 2012 broke two records: total number of members (1,226) and combined wealth ($4.6 trillion). Facebook helped.

Seven of the company's founders and investors made the annual list in 2012, up one from last year. Here's the Facebook list, which including a ranking, name, worth, and age for each individual (together they're worth $28.7 billion):

  • 35. Mark Zuckerberg, $17.5 billion, 27-years-old
  • 314. Dustin Moskovitz, $3.5 billon, 27-years-old
  • 601. Sean Parker, $2.1 billion, 32-years-old
  • 634. Eduardo Saverin, $2.0 billion, 30-years-old
  • 854. Peter Thiel, $1.5 billion, 44-years-old
  • 1075. Jim Breyer, $1.1 billion, 50-years-old
  • 1153. Yuri Milner, $1.0 billion, 50-years-old

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg moved from number 52 with a wealth of $13.5 billion in 2011 to number 35 with a worth of $17.5 billion in 2012. That number is likely to keep growing. As I noted when Facebook filed for its $5 billion initial public offering (IPO) last month: the numbers show Zuckerberg has a 28.4 percent stake in the company, but that he also has voting control over at least 57.1 percent of Class B shares through a chain of agreements with other shareholders. He bought said voting control shares for $100 apiece.

Facebook co-founders Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin both moved up on the list. Moskovitz increased his worth from $2.7 billion to $3.5 billion while Saverin increased his worth from $1.6 billion to $2.0 billion. Moskovitz was Zuckerberg's roommate at Harvard, Facebook's third employee, and left Facebook in 2008 to start Asana. Saverin was meanwhile sued by Facebook for allegedly interfering with business and insisting on keeping a 30 percent stake. Saverin countersued, the two settled, and he got a 5 percent stake as well as a co-founder bio on Facebook's site. He is now living in Singapore, where he recently spoke highly of Facebook, even though he has three other investments: Jumio, ShopSavvy, and Qwiki.

Napster co-founder and Facebook's former president Sean Parker increased his worth from $1.6 billion to $2.1 billion, and his rank to 601. Parker has a stake of just under 3 percent in the social network after joining the company in 2004. Separately, he has returned to his roots by investing in Spotify and Airtime.

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel dipped from 828 and an estimated worth of $1.5 billion to a rank of 854 with the same estimated worth (no, that's not a typo: although his wealth remained the same, his rank decreased as others grew). In June 2004, Thiel gave Facebook a $500,000 loan, later converted to a 10 percent stake and eventually reduced to 3 percent.

In April 2005, Jim Breyer and Accel Partners invested $12.7 million in Facebook for a 15 percent stake. Breyer owns 1 percent of the company separate from his firm's stake, which is roughly worth 10 percent now.

Yuri Milner has a net worth that remains unchanged at $1 billion. Using DST Global, a private fund that invests in global Internet companies, Milner paid $200 million in 2009 for a stake in Facebook. The value of this initial investment has jumped an estimated five-fold.

Facebook's highest valuation was $102.3 billion, but it actually ended February with a valuation of $93.1 billion, meaning it is back below the $100 billion mark it has been projected to be worth. Despite the drop, Facebook is still expected to create more than 1,000 new millionaires (will your friend be one of them?) when it goes public, likely in May 2012.

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