1
Elon Musk
NAME
Elon Musk
NET WORTH
$199.2b
COMPANY
Tesla
COUNTRY
U.S.
GREEN NET WORTH
$180.7b
Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer, became the richest person on the planet earlier this year thanks to the company’s surging stock price. Its Gigafactory 1 is the world’s highest-volume battery plant.
Did you know?
Tesla vehicles have been driven more than 10 billion miles to date, resulting in combined savings of more than 4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
2
Zeng Yuqun, Huang Shilin, Pei Zhenhua, Li Ping
NAME
Zeng Yuqun, Huang Shilin, Pei Zhenhua, Li Ping
NET WORTH
$61.6b
COMPANY
CATL
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$60.7b
CATL, the world’s biggest maker of EV batteries, supplies car manufacturers including Tesla, Toyota, BMW, and Volvo. Its lithium-ion phosphate batteries were cheap enough to let Tesla trim the price of its Model 3 by almost 10% last year.
Did you know?
The company has developed a power pack that can sustain an electric car for more than 1 million miles.
3
Li Zhenguo, Li Chunan, Li Xiyan, Zhong Baoshen
NAME
Li Zhenguo, Li Chunan, Li Xiyan, Zhong Baoshen
NET WORTH
$16.1b
COMPANY
Longi
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$16.1b
Longi is the world’s largest manufacturer of solar wafers, the building blocks of solar panels. Established in 2000, the company supplies about a quarter of the world’s solar wafers and modules.
Did you know?
Longi said in December that Hillhouse Capital Management would buy a 6% stake in the maker of solar products.
4
Wang Chuanfu, Lv Xiangyang, Xia Zuoquan
NAME
Wang Chuanfu, Lv Xiangyang, Xia Zuoquan
NET WORTH
$33.5b
COMPANY
BYD
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$13.4b
Wang Chuanfu set up BYD in 1995, and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has owned a stake in the carmaker since 2008. It’s converting Shenzhen’s entire fleet of buses, taxis, and trucks into plug-in electric vehicles.
Did you know?
BYD is partnering with Didi Chuxing, the world’s largest ride-hailing network, to develop customized EVs.
5
Liu Jincheng
NAME
Liu Jincheng
NET WORTH
$10.9b
COMPANY
Eve Energy
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$10.9b
Eve Energy is the fifth-largest supplier to China’s EV sector with 5% market share and counts Daimler, BMW, and Xpeng among its customers. It recently produced lithium-ion samples for an EV battery that can be charged in just five minutes.
Did you know?
Liu was a torchbearer for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
6
He Xiaopeng, Xia Heng
NAME
He Xiaopeng, Xia Heng
NET WORTH
$10.3bn
COMPANY
XPeng
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$10.3bn
Founded by ex-Alibaba executive He Xiaopeng in 2014, Xpeng makes an EV sedan and SUV. A third model, an all-electric sedan, will be introduced later this year. The automaker provides free charging services at 670 stations across 100 Chinese cities.
Did you know?
The company’s latest P7 sedan model will come with features that enable autonomous driving on highways.
7
Anthony Pratt
NAME
Anthony Pratt
NET WORTH
$9b
COMPANY
Pratt Industries
COUNTRY
Australia
GREEN NET WORTH
$9b
Pratt owns Georgia-based Pratt Industries, the world’s largest privately held producer of 100% recycled paper and packaging. The company also runs clean energy plants to help power its mills.
Did you know?
Pratt Industries says its operations save 85,000 trees, 35 million gallons of water and more than 5,000 tons of greenhouse-gas emissions every day.
8
Li Bin
NAME
Li Bin
NET WORTH
$9b
COMPANY
Nio
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$9b
Backed by Chinese tech giant Tencent, Nio has surged eightfold in value since its initial public offering in September 2018. The EV maker plans to build a network of 500 power-swap stations—where people can change their car’s battery rather than recharge it—by the end of 2021.
Did you know?
Nio’s latest all-electric sedan, the ET7, will start at about $69,000 before government subsidies. It’s almost 70% more expensive than an entry-level Tesla Model 3 built in China.
9
Aloys Wobben
NAME
Aloys Wobben
NET WORTH
$8.9b
COMPANY
Enercon
COUNTRY
Germany
GREEN NET WORTH
$8.9b
Wobben developed his first wind turbine in the 1970s and started Enercon in 1984. The German company, now one of the world’s largest in the sector, has faced challenges in its home country, where delayed approvals for new wind farms damped sales. It appointed a new CEO in November to engineer a turnaround.
Did you know?
Enercon’s E-126 turbine has a rotor diameter of 127 meters (417 feet), longer than a football field.
10
Lin Jianhua
NAME
Lin Jianhua
NET WORTH
$8.7b
COMPANY
Hangzhou First Applied Material
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$8.7b
Established in 2003, First Applied Material mainly produces films for solar panels. It makes more than half the world’s ethylene vinyl acetate films, an essential component of solar panels that helps protect them from harsh weather.
Did you know?
The company’s shares more than doubled last year.
11
Li Xiang, Fan Zheng
NAME
Li Xiang, Fan Zheng
NET WORTH
$6.9b
COMPANY
Li Auto
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$6.9b
Li Xiang founded Li Auto in 2015, attracting backers including Chinese internet behemoths Meituan and ByteDance. The company delivered more than 32,000 electric vehicles last year, and its market value has almost tripled since its July 2020 listing.
Did you know?
Li Auto recalled 10,469 electric vehicles produced from November 2019 to June 2020 because of a front-suspension issue.
12
Cao Renxian
NAME
Cao Renxian
NET WORTH
$6.3b
COMPANY
Sungrow Power Supply
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$6.3b
Cao Renxian quit his teaching job and founded Sungrow Power Supply in 1997. The company controls about 15% of the global market for solar inverters, which convert the output of a solar panel into a utility frequency alternating current.
Did you know?
China added 48 gigawatts of solar capacity last year, equivalent in power to 5.28 billion LED lightbulbs.
13
Dong Jinggui, Qian Jinghong
NAME
Dong Jinggui, Qian Jinghong
NET WORTH
$5b
COMPANY
Yadea
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$5b
Husband-and-wife team founded the Chinese maker of internet-connected electric scooters in 2001. Its shares jumped more than 680% last year as people sought more socially distanced and environmentally friendly ways to commute during the pandemic.
Did you know?
Actor Vin Diesel stars as a spy in ads for Yadea’s e-scooters.
14
Wang Yanqing
NAME
Wang Yanqing
NET WORTH
$4.6b
COMPANY
Wuxi Lead
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$4.6b
Wuxi Lead is China’s biggest publicly traded manufacturer of lithium-battery equipment. Its clients include Panasonic, Sony, Samsung SDI, LG Chem, CATL, and BYD.
Did you know?
It’s the biggest supplier to CATL, which announced plans to invest $388.9 million in the battery-equipment maker in September.
15
Jin Baofang
NAME
Jin Baofang
NET WORTH
$4.5b
COMPANY
JA Solar Technology
COUNTRY
China
GREEN NET WORTH
$4.5b
Founded in 2005, JA Solar is one of China’s largest manufacturers of silicon wafers, cells, and modules for solar panels. The company sells its products to more than 135 countries and regions, and 72% of its revenue in 2019 came from outside of China.
Did you know?
The company is investing $1.6 billion to ramp up its photovoltaic production capacity, including building solar cell and panel factories in Vietnam.
