Numerous billionaires and multimillionaires also penned a letter calling on global leaders to fairly tax the super rich like themselves. Musk, Arnault, Bezos, Ellison and Buffett were not among the signatories — although Buffett has famously criticized the wealthy’s lower tax rates and previously advocated for policy change in the same vein. Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg announced Friday that the company planned to spend $60 billion to $65 billion on projects related to AI this year, well above Wall Street estimates.
Net Worth: $10.8 Billion Age: 42 Country/Territory: Colombia Industry: Finance & Investments
Page was among early investors in Planetary Resources, a space exploration and asteroid-mining company. Established in 2009, the company was acquired by blockchain firm ConsenSys in 2018 amid funding problems. He has also shown an interest in flying car companies, investing in both Kitty Hawk and Opener, although Kitty Hawk ceased operations in 2022. With so much of their wealth in publicly traded stocks, the net worth of the richest fluctuates along with the market valuations of the companies they own. Below are the 10 wealthiest people on the planet, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ellison co-founded Oracle Corporation, a software and database management giant, in 1977 and served as CEO until 2014.
- He’s also a noted philanthropist, founding the Bezos Earth Fund in 2020 with a donation of $10 billion and has said that he will give away most of his fortune.
- Ortega ranked No. 6 richest in the world in 2020, with a $55 billion fortune.
- Many are founders of technology giants, with much of their wealth still invested in the companies they started.
- The French businessman has served as CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury group, since becoming the majority shareholder in 1989.
- The report also pointed out that one in ten women globally lives in extreme poverty, earning less than $2.15 a day.
Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken & family
Now the top three richest people in the world are all worth $200 billion or more—up from just one of them a month ago. The richest woman in the world is Francoise Bettencourt Meyers of France. As of September 1, 2024, she is worth an estimated $89.8 billion and is the world’s 18th richest person. Shares of Meta rose 9% in August, lifting Zuckerberg’s fortune by $13.9 billion over the course of the month. He rose to the world’s No. 4 richest from No. 5 at the beginning of August. As of October 1, Arnault is worth almost $22 billion less than a month ago, per Forbes’ estimates, following a nearly 11% drop in the the price of LVMH shares.
Bill Gates is the co-founder of Microsoft and has long been among the wealthiest people as his software company continued to expand over decades. Gates is also known for his philanthropic endeavors, namely at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a private charitable foundation. The tech leaders, including Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have collectively seen their fortunes grow significantly.
Net Worth: $33.5 Billion Age: 52 Country/Territory: China Industry: Technology
Google also offers a variety of electronic devices, including Pixel smartphones, computers, and tablets, Nest smart home devices, and the Stadia gaming platform. Gates shifted from the company’s CEO to the role of board chair in 2008. An engineer by training, Arnault first showed his business acumen while working for his father’s construction firm, Ferret-Savinel, taking charge of the company in 1971. He converted Ferret-Savinel to a real estate company named Férinel Inc. in 1979. In 2016, he gave $200 million to the University of Southern California for a new cancer research center.
Here are the wealthiest people on Forbes’ annual rich list.
Ballmer’s fortune dropped by an estimated $1.5 billion in the past month amid a slight dip in Microsoft shares. Ballmer and his wife Connie are among the 25 most generous philanthropists in America. Gates’ fortune rose by an estimated $6.3 billion during August, enough to move him ahead up two spots to No. 7 richest. Despite giving away $4.6 billion worth of his Berkshire Hathaway shares in mid-June, his fortune rose by more than $6 billion in July.
- The report also predicted that the world’s first trillionaires would emerge within the next decade, as the wealth of the richest 10 billionaires grew by $100 million per day on average, over the last 10 years.
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- Becamce the world’s No. 2 richest as of October 1 follwoing a runup in the price of Oracle shares in September.
- Spokespeople for both Gates and French Gates declined to comment on the couple’s divorce settlement.
- Sergey Brin stepped down as president of Alphabet, parent company of Google, in December 2019 but remains a controlling shareholder and a board member.
He first bought shares in a textile company called Berkshire Hathaway in 1962, becoming the majority shareholder by 1965. Buffett expanded the company’s holdings to insurance and other investments in 1967. 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. Oracle has acquired numerous large companies over its history, such as Sun Microsystems and Cerner. In 1977, Ellison founded Software Development Laboratories alongside Oates and Miner.
Idan Ofer is one of two sons of shipping magnate Sammy Ofer, who died in 2011 and was once Israel’s richest man.
Ortega ranked No. 6 richest in the world in 2020, with a $55 billion fortune. He ranked No. 13 on Forbes’ lists of the World’s Billionaires in both 2023 and 2024. An uptick in Inditex shares in September landed Ortega back among the top ten richest for the first time in years. Page moved up one rank from last month, supported by an 11% rise Google-parent Alphabet’s shares.
After dropping in the Forbes ranking, Musk became the world’s richest person again on June 8, 2023 and held onto the number one spot for the remainder of 2023. Musk’s fortune rose by about $6 billion in December, lifted by a 4% rise in the price of Tesla shares. Bezos was the world’s richest person on Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires from 2018 through 2021; he dropped to second richest on the 2022 billionaires list. Bezos was the world’s richest person on Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires from 2018 through 2021; he dropped to second richest on the 2022 billionaires list and No. 3 on the 2024 list.
Bernard Arnault and his family currently hold a personal fortune of $175.1 billion per Forbes.
Net Worth: $14.6 Billion Age: 81 Country/Territory: United States Industry: Energy
In late November the Department of Justice said Google should sell its Chrome browser in order to reduce the company’s dominance online. In response, Google said in a statement that such a move would hurt consumers and America’s technological leadership. Throughout the year, we update their fortunes on a daily basis. Many billionaires hold much of their net worth What is Legal E-Billing in the stock of the company they founded or cofounded.
Indian tech magnate Azim Premji’s $11.3 billion (revenue) Wipro is among India’s largest software services providers.
Zuckerberg’s net worth rose by $3.8 billion in the past month, the result of a gain of about 1.9% in Meta shares during December. Huang has surpassed Spain’s Amancio Ortega, the founder of Zara and its parent company Inditex, as shares of Inditex have weakened recently. The tech leaders, including Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have collectively seen their fortunes grow significantly. The evolving wealth landscape has seen the collective fortunes of the world’s 500 richest individuals soar, with a remarkable milestone reached. The most famous living value investor, Warren Buffett filed his first tax return in 1944 at age 14, declaring earnings from his boyhood paper route.