The uber-rich are only getting richer as investors double down on the AI boom.
The world’s 10 wealthiest people have added a remarkable $523 billion to their fortunes this year, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows.
Mastercard, Exxon Mobil, and Netflix are all worth less than that; their market values were between $460 billion and $520 billion at Monday’s close.
Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison has notched the biggest wealth gain so far this year with a $150 billion increase in net worth, to $343 billion.
Alphabet cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are both up more than $60 billion since the start of 2025, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang have added more than $50 billion to their respective fortunes in that timeframe.
PC pioneer Michael Dell, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk have all gained more than $30 billion this year. Rounding out the 10 biggest wealth winners are LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, up $19 billion and $11 billion, respectively, in just under 10 months.
The top 10 names on Bloomberg’s list added $45 billion to their combined fortunes on Monday alone as strong tech earnings and receding trade-war fears drove stocks to new highs.
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They’re collectively worth almost $2.5 trillion, or more than Amazon — a company with over $600 billion in annual sales and more than 1.5 million employees.
The 10 richest people have added over half a trillion dollars to their fortunes this year, almost entirely because of AI optimism, fueled by buzzy partnerships, massive contracts, and sky-high growth forecasts.
Year to date, Oracle stock has soared nearly 70%, Alphabet, Nvidia, and Dell have surged by over 40%, and Meta and Microsoft have jumped by over 25%.
All of the top 10 wealthiest people, except Arnault, are major shareholders of the world’s biggest AI companies, so those share-price gains have lifted the value of their stakes and inflated their net worths.
Market watchers are divided over whether the AI boom is a bubble about to burst or the start of a tech revolution. In recent interviews with Business Insider, investors Ross Gerber and Kevin O’Leary have hailed AI as a game-changing technology, while economist Gary Shilling, investor Bill Smead, professor Erik Gordon, and strategist Paul Dietrich have said it’s fostering extreme speculation that could end in disaster.
