Two years later, the company released Oracle, the first commercial relational database program to use Structured Query Language. The database program proved so popular that SDL changed its name to Oracle Systems Corporation in 1982. In December 2020, Tesla joined the S&P 500, becoming the largest company added, and in January 2021, Musk became the richest person in the world—a title that has fluctuated alongside the value of Tesla. Shares of Dell Technologies are up 87% since last year, largely thanks to an insatiable demand for servers from AI companies and possible inclusion in the S&P 500.
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Largely due to the $59 billion he has donated to the Gates Foundation, including a $20 billion gift in July 2022, he was overtaken as the world’s richest person in 2018 by Jeff Bezos. He and Melinda French Gates divorced in 2021; she received an estimated $10 billion in stock and other assets as part of the divorce settlement. Elon Musk has begun 2025 at the pinnacle of wealth, ranking as the world’s richest person, with a net worth of $433.9 billion, according to Forbes’ latest rankings. The 39th annual Forbes list of the world’s billionaires found a record 3,028 billionaires with a total net wealth of $16.1 trillion.
Net Worth: $10.5 Billion
- Additionally, the total worth of the world’s top ten richest billionaires stood at $1.81 trillion as of December 1, 2024.
- Musk is CEO of electric car company Tesla, rocket firm SpaceX and social media company X, formerly known as Twitter.
- Supply chain difficulties and Covid restrictions in China nudged Nike’s shares down 3%.
- A code request filed in January appears to be his first in years, and he has reportedly submitted code changes to Google’s AI chatbot.
(They later divorced and she died in 2013.) He owns about 60% of Madrid-listed Inditex, which has eight brands including Massimo Dutti and Pull & Bear, and 5,000 stores around the world. In 2022, after working at Inditex for 15 years, his daughter Marta Ortega Pérez became chairperson of the company. Ellison’s fortune rose by $1.9 billion in the past month as shares of software firm Oracle ticked up. Until Musk receives those options, Forbes will continue to discount the Tesla options from the pay package by 50%. The rise in fortunes of those at the five richest people in the world top of the billionaires ranking came as the Nasdaq climbed 0.7% in the past month while the S&P 500 fell 1.1%. Stocks have been volatile in response to news about President Trump’s tariff plans, reports about adjustments to the tariffs and concerns about a possible recession.
Net Worth: $30.8 Billion Age: 70 Source of Wealth: Mining Citizenship: Australia
The report, which draws on data compiled by Forbes, is timed to coincide with the kickoff of the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, an elite gathering of some of the wealthiest people and world leaders. Known as the “Oracle of Omaha,” Buffett is one of the most successful investors of all time. It has grown to be the world’s largest social network, with several billion users globally. It also wouldn’t hurt to have been born into wealth; however, the greatest fortunes on this list started as good ideas that people with creativity, drive, and connections used to build some of the world’s largest companies. Like several of the tech billionaires on this list, Larry Page embarked on his path to fame and fortune in a college dorm room. While attending Stanford University in 1995, Page and his friend Sergey Brin came up with the idea of improving Internet data extraction.
Carlos Slim Helu and Family
- He is the co-founder of Inditex fashion group, known worldwide for being the parent company of brands Zara, Massimo Dutti and Bershka, among others.
- The U.S. has a record 902 billionaires worth $6.8 trillion, followed by 516 in China worth $1.7 trillion and 205 in India worth $941 billion as of 2025.
- Here’s Elon Musk’s net worth among the list of top ten billionaires, including President Donald Trump and the wealthiest countries in the world.
- Page was among the early investors in Planetary Resources, a space exploration and asteroid-mining company.
- Still, Forbes found more than 1,000 billionaires who are richer than they were a year ago.
- Back in mid-June, Buffett gave away $4.6 billion worth of his Berkshire Hathaway shares.
So who is the richest person in the world, and how much money do they have? To determine the top five wealthiest men, Oxfam used calculations from Forbes as of November 2023. That’s according to a new report released this week by the nongovernmental organisation Oxfam. The charity publishes an annual report on world poverty to coincide with the yearly World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. The forum is a gathering of the world’s business elite – from CEOs of big corporations to self-made billionaires – to discuss global trade issues. The U.S. has a record 902 billionaires worth $6.8 trillion, followed by 516 in China worth $1.7 trillion and 205 in India Cash Flow Management for Small Businesses worth $941 billion as of 2025.
Source: Berkshire Hathaway
As a group, the top ten kick off this month worth $1.77 trillion–up $40 billion compared to April 1. As of May 2, 2025, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is the world’s richest man. Sergey Brin was born in Moscow, Russia, and moved to the U.S. with his family when he was six in 1979. After co-founding Google with Larry Page in 1998, Brin became Google’s president of technology when Eric Schmidt took over as CEO in 2001. He held the same post at the Alphabet holding company after it was established in 2015, stepping down in 2019 when Sundar Pichai took over as CEO. Arnault remained Férinel’s chair for another six years, until he acquired and reorganized luxury goods maker Financière Agache in 1984, eventually selling all its holdings other than Christian Dior and Le Bon Marché.
- Oracle is the world’s second-largest software company, providing a wide variety of cloud computing programs as well as Java and Linux code and the Oracle Exadata computing platform.
- At the same time, nearly 5 billion people globally have become poorer, as they contend with inflation, war and the climate crisis.
- According to a Financial Times report from 2022, he invested through his company, Pontegadea, and his property holdings were worth $17.2 billion.
- He and Melinda French Gates divorced in 2021; she received an estimated $10 billion in stock and other assets as part of the divorce settlement.
- As of January 1, 2024 Arnault is worth $9.4 billion more than a month ago, per Forbes’ estimates, following a rise in the the price of LVMH shares.
- Since December 1, Musk has experienced an astounding increase of $91 billion in his net worth, positioning SpaceX as the most valuable private company worldwide.
This article unveils the identities of the top 10 richest people globally, shedding light on their remarkable accomplishments, entrepreneurial aptitude, and profound influence on the global economy. In addition to SpaceX, Musk leads Tesla and holds stakes in the social media platform X, AI company xAI, and tunnelling firm Boring Co. Beyond their riches, these elites are also innovators in their own space — whether it be in finance, tech or even space. Often, these billionaires are founders of enterprise giants and multinational companies, with much of their wealth coming from the companies that they started. 9/10 of the richest people in the world are Americans, including Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and Bill Gates.
Worth: $67.4 Billion Source Of Wealth: Walmart
Larry Ellison, 79, enjoys most of his wealth from owning Oracle, a computer technology company bookkeeping whose sales increased by 18 per cent to $12.3bn (£9.7bn) by November 30, Bloomberg data showed. His real-time worth as of November 13 was listed as $319bn, making him the richest man on Earth. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world’s richest and figures are updated at the close of trading every day.