Claim:
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has the highest net worth of any recording artist in history.
evaluation:
In the spring of 2024, an X user claimed that Daniel Ek, CEO of audio streaming service Spotify, is richer than any musician in history. The post read:
Did you know that the CEO of Spotify is the richest man in history, with a net worth four times that of Paul McCartney?
You can understand now.
It’s more profitable to destroy music than to create it.
The user also posted a screenshot of Google estimating Ek’s net worth at $4.9 billion, a figure that’s accurate, according to Forbes’ Realtime Billionaires List, which reports that Ek will have $4.9 billion as of 2024. Ek is ranked 646th on the list, ahead of the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
The “Methodology” section of the listing notes that the information is updated regularly.
The value of individuals’ publicly traded holdings is updated every five minutes while their respective stock markets are open (stock prices are delayed by 15 minutes). The net worth of individuals whose fortunes are significantly tied up in private companies is updated once a day.
If we narrow this list down to “music,” we’ll see that only a few musicians are on the list. In fact, very few musicians have made it past the threshold of becoming billionaires. Only Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Taylor Swift are on the Forbes list.
Rihanna was the first female artist to become a billionaire and remains the richest female musician with a net worth of $1.4 billion. Jay-Z was the first rapper to become a billionaire in 2019. Swift is the first billionaire to make money solely from music.
According to The Sunday Times Rich List, Paul McCartney will become Britain’s first billionaire musician in 2024, a remarkable feat when compared to the vast number of popular British musicians.
The list estimates McCartney’s net worth at $1.3 billion, the same as Swift’s estimated net worth on the Forbes list, while Jay-Z is estimated to have a net worth of $2.5 billion on the Forbes list. All of these musicians are nowhere near Ek’s net worth.
It may seem surprising to think that Ek is richer than any musician in history, but it’s true nonetheless. According to Forbes magazine, no musician had ever reached billionaire status until 2019. Ek has amassed nearly $5 billion, making him richer than any musician in history.
Therefore, we have rated this claim as “True.”
