You rarely see modern dictators on these lists but populations and economic prosperity have exploded to the point where historic kings can’t really compete.
“social status and ability to direct human labor” doesn’t require ownership just control.
In the US congress controls in the funding, but in a dictatorship the guy at the top can unilaterally allocate billions and then manage how it’s spent. It’s not total control of all government assets but it is control of a significant fraction of a modern economy.
Just as a thought experiment, suppose he wanted to fund Doctors Without Borders or some other international charity. Do you really think he’d have trouble sending the equivalent of 1 billion USD in Chinese government funds to that org? How about 2 billion? Obviously at some point it wouldn’t work but where exactly that line is says a lot about the power he has.
You rarely see modern dictators on these lists but populations and economic prosperity have exploded to the point where historic kings can’t really compete.