Former President Donald Trump dropped 298 spots in Forbes' ranking of the world's billionaires

• Trump dropped from the No. 1,001 spot to No. 1,299 in Forbes’ 2021 Billionaires List.
• The pandemic has pummeled his commercial real estate business, which is his biggest revenue driver.
• Trump has grown richer since last year, but other billionaires surpassed him.
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Former President Donald Trump dropped 298 spots in Forbes’ Billionaires list, which was released Tuesday.

Trump sat at the No. 1,001 spot in 2020 and now holds the 1,299th place in the publication’s annual list, which ranks the world’s billionaires. As Forbes notes, Trump has actually grown richer since this time last year, but others on the list saw their fortunes expand even more. He is worth $2.4 billion by Forbes’ estimates.

The pandemic — as well as the controversy surrounding impeachments against him and other political snafus — have marred his commercial real estate business, a market that has taken a hit during the health crisis-driven shutdowns. About 75% of his income comes from his commercial real estate assets, including revenue from resorts and golf clubs, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

Read more: The Manhattan DA’s office picked up the pace of its investigation into Trump’s finances once it hired a prosecutor who used to pursue mob bosses, a cooperating witness says

His Manhattan properties, in particular, rake in a large chunk of revenue for him, a stream of income that has been interrupted by an upended New York real estate market.

Over the four years that Trump was president, his net worth plummeted by $700 million from $3 billion to $2.3 billion, as Insider’s Grace Kay and Grace Dean reported. He was the first billionaire in history to serve as president of the United States.

Last year, Trump also fell 77 spots in Forbes’ ranking of the 400 richest Americans — his net worth took a $600 million hit between September 2019 and September 2020. Fellow billionaire investor Warren Buffett also met rough times during the pandemic and saw his net worth plummet $7.3 billion.

The individuals included in Forbes’ 2021 Billionaire’s List are collectively word $13.1 trillion, with most residing in the US. Despite the setbacks, Forbes reported that a new billionaire emerged every 14 hours on average over the course of the last year. 

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