Tadashi Yanai is living out his dream. Of all the many art books lining his wood-panelled office in Tokyo, the most “sacred text” turns out to be a Next catalogue from 1987, shot by the now famous Vogue and Vanity Fair photographer Koto Bolofo. “This inspired me most, back in the Eighties,” says Yanai, who at 77 is Japan's richest man with a fortune put at around $69bn. “Ordinary people looking cool and casual… I wanted to deliver this kind of clothing for current times. Clothes to make people happy.”

You know when a brand has conquered the zeitgeist when the vocabulary around it goes mainstream. For Uniqlo – the fast-fashion phenomenon with a mission to dress the world in its anonymously chic “wardrobe building blocks” – that moment came when the word “unibare” entered the lexicon, says The Times. It expresses the moment you realise that someone is wearing Uniqlo, “rather than anything more expensive”.

In April, shares in Fast Retailing – Uniqlo's parent company – hit a record high on the back of roaring overseas growth in the US and Europe, says Bloomberg. They've now gained 45% year-to-date. Fast Retailing is the third biggest apparel company in the world after Zara's Inditex and the H&M stable, and its humble brown paper bags have become a fixture from Oxford Street to Fifth Avenue.

In a business culture “famed for grey conformity”, Tadashi Yanai “can't help but swim against the tide”, says Time – happily flaunting his success despite local taboos against ostentatious wealth. He owns two golf courses on the Hawaiian island of Maui alone. Yet when you walk with him through Uniqlo he reveals some “quintessentially Japanese traits”, says Bloomberg Businessweek: “attention to detail, supply-chain prowess, minimalist aesthetics” – and frugality.

Tadashi Yanai was born into the rag trade

Tadashi Yanai grew up in the trade – his parents ran a menswear shop in Ube on the main Japanese island of Honshu. The event that changed his life was the Vietnam war, which interrupted his studies in political economy at Tokyo's Waseda University because of a student walk-out. The break enabled him to travel to the US and UK, where the proliferation of mid-market clothing shops planted a seed. In 1972, after a brief stint selling men's clothes for a supermarket chain, Tadashi Yanai was handed the keys to his father's now expanded business.

In 1984 he opened the first branch of the Unique Clothing Warehouse in Hiroshima to pursue a more casual style. The firm's big breakthrough came in 1998 – as Japan was reeling from its burst economic bubble – when Yanai opened Uniqlo's first Tokyo outlet and sold a lightweight fleece for just £15. “Every fourth Japanese consumer bought one.”

When Tadashi Yanai published his autobiography, One Win and Nine Losses, he had a cathartic time describing his many mistakes down the years – not least overhasty expansion efforts, which necessitated a humiliating retreat. These days, Uniqlo's expansion is more measured, but has a relentless quality, says The Times. Having targeted national capitals, it's going for the regions – in the past year, opening new British stores in Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol. A series of designer collaborations – with minimalist Jil Sander and, latterly, Dior maestro Jonathan Anderson – has boosted the brand's appeal.

Tadashi Yanai, who is building sponsorship programmes with art galleries globally, has strong ideas about being “a force for good” and giving back to society. Yet he runs his own fiefdom like “a dictator”, says Time. With two sons now working in the business, questions about the succession abound. But he's giving nothing away. “When I get older my dream is to take a walk every day on the streets of London” – a continuing source of inspiration, he told The Telegraph in 2015. No sign of that happening any time soon.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Small-cap stocks have been abandoned by investors. That is bad news not only for the companies themselves, but for the wider UK economy. In the past, the smallest businesses listed on the London stock market have played an important role in Britain's economy. Ambitious young companies could raise money, expand their operations and, if successful, grow into much larger businesses. Investors who backed them early often enjoyed excellent returns along the way.

Today, that system is breaking down. A series of regulatory changes and industry shifts has steadily diverted money away from smaller companies and towards the largest firms in the market. The result is a funding drought for many promising businesses and fewer opportunities for savers seeking long-term growth. Because these changes are now deeply embedded, a reversal looks unlikely anytime soon.

That does not mean investors should ignore small caps. In fact, the current environment may offer some of the best opportunities seen for years. But investors need to adapt. Simply buying cheap shares and waiting for the market to recognise their value is no longer enough. Many small-cap stocks remain overlooked for years. The most attractive opportunities are often companies that can grow rapidly, recover from temporary setbacks, or unlock value through corporate activity. In other words, investors should be looking for tomorrow's mid-caps rather than today's statistically cheap shares.

Finding bargains in small-cap stocks isn't enough

The UK stock market is shrinking as listed companies disappear through takeovers, private-equity bids and delistings. At the same time, fewer investors are directing money towards small caps. As a result, prices at the lower end of the market often fail to reflect the underlying performance of a business. In theory, that should make stockpicking easier. If markets become less efficient, bargains should become more common. The problem is that cheap shares can now remain cheap for a long time. Buying undervalued stocks only works if someone eventually notices that they are undervalued.

To understand why this is happening, it helps to look at how the wealth-management industry has changed. Not long ago, stockbrokers and fund managers devoted considerable resources to researching smaller companies and allocating clients' capital across the market. That process helped ensure that money flowed to promising businesses and that share prices broadly reflected reality. Things have changed. Building bespoke portfolios has become increasingly expensive and administratively burdensome. Faced with rising compliance requirements and growing scrutiny over fees, many advisers have stopped making investment decisions themselves. Clumsy rules from the regulator triggered this shift. To eliminate compliance risks and operational costs, advisers stopped managing money altogether. Instead, they outsourced the process entirely to mass-market model-portfolio services (MPS).

That trend has concentrated massive wealth into a handful of firms. Four dominant discretionary managers now control the bulk of the UK MPS market. Quilter WealthSelect, Tatton Investment Management, Timeline Portfolios and AJ Bell Investments manage more than £70 billion combined and are growing rapidly. Today, the MPS marketplace relies almost entirely on passive tracking funds. Driven by regulatory pressure to keep fees low, providers invest in cheap index funds that replicate the wider market. Human judgment has been replaced by algorithms. Instead of analysing whether a business is worth buying, a passive fund allocates cash based purely on how large a company it already is.

The big four allocate a combined £9 billion to the UK stock market. Yet tracing the money down to the underlying holdings reveals that almost none of it reaches smaller companies. When investment committees use passive UK equity trackers, index rules determine where the money goes. These index rules explain why the largest wealth managers hold next to nothing in smaller companies. In the past, a balanced portfolio routinely allocated several percent to small caps. Today, that support has vanished. Quilter WealthSelect and Tatton Investment

Management control around £50 billion between them, yet their reliance on broad market benchmarks dilutes actual small-cap exposure to around 0.3% of total assets. AJ Bell relies on trackers that systematically lop off the bottom 3% of the investable market, so its allocation to pure small caps sits at virtually nothing.

This starvation of capital has triggered a destructive feedback loop, worsened by past regulatory mistakes. New rules permanently damaged the stock market by forcing brokers to charge separately for research and trading. When active funds dominated the market, brokers employed armies of researchers to write detailed reports, helping fund managers choose where to invest. In the past, brokers spent time analysing small companies to drum up interest among investors and find buyers for their shares, funding the work through trading in large companies. This research gave smaller firms visibility and kept their share prices accurate. Once the regulator banned this so-called bundling, the commercial model for small-cap broking collapsed because passive tracking funds do not buy research.

Analysts' coverage for companies valued under £250 million has all but vanished. Today, hundreds of listed British businesses are completely ignored by the market. With no regular broker reports, private investors have to work much harder, using specialised resources to find out how well these businesses are performing. Institutional investors will not buy shares in a company that nobody covers and brokers will not spend money writing about companies that the big wealth platforms are blocked from buying. Investing is becoming a purely automated exercise driven by index size, leaving high-quality small companies completely cut off.

How to find the right small-cap stocks

Yet all is not lost. For savvy investors who understand this breakdown, the dysfunction creates a lucrative hunting ground. To succeed, investors must leave behind old-style value investing. Buying a stock simply because it looks cheap on paper is a mistake, as passive investing means that value stocks may remain cheap forever. Instead, investors must look through these three specific lenses to find the stocks that can entice money from investors.

The first lens focuses attention on structural growth – that is, high-quality businesses expanding their operations and becoming more valuable in the process, generating high levels of real growth by deploying a proven commercial formula. This could make them the mid-caps of the future. When a company grows its earnings consistently, the compounding effect eventually overwhelms the lack of market interest. Even if the valuation multiple stays depressed, the sheer scale of the underlying profit expansion forces the share price higher, dragging the business out of the small-cap index to where there are far more investors.

The second lens reveals recovery plays that have hit cyclical lows. The turbulent economy of the last few years has battered corporate earnings, causing share prices to collapse and pushing formerly substantial businesses down into the small-cap sector. But this is often a temporary condition driven by external cyclical factors rather than permanent structural decline. The goal is to identify businesses that have survived the worst of the downturn and have the strength to capitalise on the inevitable rebound. When the cycle turns, these companies will enjoy a dramatic recovery, delivering an explosive bounce in earnings.

The third lens focuses on corporate activity – revealing under-the-radar businesses where an activist investor has built a stake to force operational change, unlock shareholder value or streamline the group. The activity can take many forms – from cost-cutting programmes to selling off non-core assets, or shrinking the share count using excess cash – and create prime targets for full takeovers by external corporate buyers. Private-equity firms and larger international corporations routinely scan the UK small-cap market for high-quality assets trading at steep discounts to their private market value. When a corporate buyer launches a full cash takeover bid, the market reaction can deliver value for shareholders. The following companies are examples that meet some of these three criteria.

Nine of the best UK small-cap stocks

Fintel (LSE: FNTL) is a structurally growing business that is priced as if it is not. It provides critical compliance data and fintech software to thousands of British financial advisers through its dominant SimplyBiz and Defaqto brands. The result is a highly predictable stream of recurring subscription income, with demand likely to increase as regulation across the retail wealth sector becomes more stringent. Yet the market prices the combined entity at a steep discount to the price that other similar businesses have been acquired for. This allows investors to buy a highly scalable fintech at a bargain valuation, long before the compounding earnings force a market rerating.

Software Circle (LSE: SFT) aims to generate structural growth via a disciplined consolidation strategy. It is actively buying up niche software businesses within highly fragmented sectors across the UK. Operations are at an early stage, but management is progressing sensibly, securing acquisitions at very attractive multiples while maintaining a lean head office and a decentralised operational structure. This playbook closely mirrors the model of other firms that have generated immense long-term wealth. Though tiny today, this firm has all the traits necessary to deliver exceptional multi-year shareholder returns.

Amcomri Group (LSE: AMCO) operates a strict buy, improve, build strategy across the fragmented UK engineering and manufacturing sectors. The business targets high-quality industrial firms facing the owner's retirement, acquiring them at low single-digit multiples before driving organic margin improvements. This roll-up model generates highly predictable structural growth completely independent of the wider macroeconomic backdrop. Recent final results confirm this operational formula is working, with pre-tax profits significantly ahead of market expectations.

Vanquis Banking Group (LSE: VANQ) is a cyclical recovery play. Formerly a FTSE 100 stock called Provident Financial, the lender shrank into a micro-cap minnow after major operational disasters. Management has finished cleaning up the wreckage, yet the market still prices the shares as if collapse is certain. Vanquis provides credit cards and vehicle finance to millions of sub-prime borrowers that mainstream banks ignore. Management targets mid-teens returns on tangible equity by 2027. If they deliver, the shares will be unbelievably cheap and a sharp market rerating should drive the share price up to reward investors who timed the recovery correctly. The bank operates as a far better business than its depressed price reflects.

Focusrite (LSE: TUNE) is a clear case of a former stockmarket darling caught at a cyclical low. The audio-products group enjoyed an unprecedented sales boom during the pandemic. However, as global demand normalised, the business wrestled with severe inventory overstocking and costly distribution headaches that clouded performance for several years. Recent trading updates indicate that these operational problems are finally clearing. Trading on a low multiple of its current depressed earnings, Focusrite offers massive upside. As underlying profits recover toward historic levels, this corporate recovery could trigger a rise to a much higher share price.

Marshalls (LSE: MSLH) serves as another example of a business hitting a cyclical low, operating as a highly respected supplier to the struggling UK building industry. High interest rates, inflation and uncertainty about policy have brought domestic construction to its knees, dragging the business down with it. This company once commanded a premium valuation as a well-known mid-cap, but it has now fallen into obscurity. The shares historically traded at a multiple to book value, yet they currently languish at a clear discount. When building activity inevitably recovers, Marshalls will benefit immensely, potentially driving a sharp recovery in its share price.

Capita (LSE: CPI) is another cyclical recovery play, a fallen angel offering massive potential for recovery. The outsourcing giant once sat in the FTSE 100 before a collapse dragged it down to micro-cap levels. New management has aggressively cleaned up the balance sheet, selling non-core software assets to eliminate debt. The business still generates more than £2.4 billion in annual revenues, yet trades at a deeply depressed valuation. This turnaround relies entirely on internal cost-cutting rather than macroeconomic growth. As administrative cost-cutting leaves more free cash in the bank, the shares could enjoy a substantial and justified market rerating.

Funding Circle (LSE: FCH) is an underappreciated growth story driven by massive operational gearing. The digital platform matches small business borrowers with institutional lenders. This matching model requires very few incremental cost rises to service new volume. This structural efficiency allows expanding revenues to drop straight to the bottom line. Pre-tax profits recently surged from £3.4 billion to £20.3 billion and are on track almost to double again to £35 million this year. The wider market remains blind to this compounding scaleability, mispricing a high-margin financial matchmaker as just another lender.

SDI Group (LSE: SDI) offers a double whammy by combining structural growth with a cyclical margin recovery. The company runs a highly disciplined buy-and-build strategy, acquiring niche scientific-instrument businesses that specialise in optics and photonics for laboratories. This consolidation model delivered excellent long-term returns until a recent downturn in its core scientific end markets depressed the group's earnings. This temporary pain leaves the shares trading at a very cheap valuation. As laboratory budgets normalise and operating margins recover, investors could capture the combination of compounding growth and an explosive rebound.

The best specialist funds in the sector

Picking individual micro-cap stocks requires patience and knowledge, and is certainly not for everyone. For investors who prefer to delegate the task, backing a specialist fund manager with a proven record is sensible. Two specific investment trusts have proved their ability to navigate these markets with skill. The lead manager of Rockwood Strategic (LSE: RKW), Richard Staveley, has more than 25 years of experience and runs a concentrated portfolio of undervalued businesses. He engages directly with boards to unlock value, a strategy that has delivered a stellar record. Staveley targets unloved, mispriced assets and drags them through a turnaround process until the wider market is forced to pay attention.

For those looking even further down the market scale, Onward Opportunities (LSE: ONWD) provides exposure to some of the smallest companies listed in the UK. Lead manager Laurence Hulse launched the trust in March 2023 on the Aim junior market and took it to the main market in April 2026. He deliberately operates in the smallest, most illiquid territory and his execution has been outstanding, delivering a very good performance since the trust's inception.

For those selecting individual stocks today, three of the stocks mentioned above look particularly interesting. Focusrite is a cyclical recovery play that has finally cleared some post-pandemic hurdles and positioned its manufacturing operations for a strong earnings recovery. Vanquis Banking Group remains absurdly mispriced, trading at a steep discount to its underlying net asset value while the market completely ignores its mid-teens profitability targets. And Software Circle provides an underappreciated growth story with a disciplined, decentralised model for integrating niche acquisitions efficiently. Investors who back these stocks will gain direct exposure to tangibly improving businesses.

For investors who prefer to delegate the stockpicking, Rockwood Strategic is the ideal vehicle. It has a long record of active engagement by the board and offers instant diversification across a concentrated basket of deeply undervalued turnaround plays.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Zhou Qunfei sparked curiosity as the “mystery woman” placed between two of the US's most powerful technology chieftains, Elon Musk and Tim Cook, during the Chinese state banquet for Donald Trump last month. “Placement” is critical, says Struan Stevenson in his book The Course of History: Ten Meals That Changed the World. And Zhou Qunfei’s placement was a fine example of “dining diplomacy”, which can shape global political and economic outcomes – for better or worse.

Zhou Qunfei is the little-known (in the West) founder of Lens Technology, a leading touchscreen supplier and one of the richest self-made women in the world, says the South China Morning Post. The decision to put her next to two of her most important clients certainly created an opportunity to bend their ears. But from the point of view of Beijing's image shapers, it was also a powerful reminder to American plutocrats that the Chinese Dream is as potent as their own. Within the country, Zhou is held up as an inspirational figure who “rose from humble beginnings” by dint of hard work, resilience and talent, to take her place among China's foremost industrialists. For millions of Chinese migrant workers, she's viewed as the archetypal role model. Forbes puts her current wealth at around $20 billion.

The “touchscreen queen” began life “in utter destitution”. Born in 1970, in a village near the city of Xiangxiang in Hunan province, her mother died when she was five and her father was severely maimed in an industrial accident. Her days were spent planting vegetables, raising pigs and collecting plastic waste to earn money. “I had to constantly think about where my next meal would come from,” she told CNBC. Zhou Qunfei's “hunger years” provided “a foundation of grit”, says Jing Daily. At 15, she set out on the long journey to Shenzhen, initially finding work as a security guard before joining the assembly line of a factory producing glass for watches. She attended night classes in accounting, computing, Cantonese and screen printing and even obtained a licence for driving large vehicles.

Zhou Qunfei's “sharp problem-solving skills” and drive rapidly saw her promoted. But at 23, she took the leap into setting up her own business with relatives, operating out of a three-bedroom flat. They began with silk-screen printing before reverting to manufacturing glass for watches. When mobile phones began proliferating in the early 2000s, Zhou retooled the business, eventually securing orders from Motorola, HTC, Nokia and Samsung. A pivotal moment came in 2007 when Lens Technology became a supplier for Apple's first-generation iPhone touchscreens, says Tatler Asia. The contract catapulted the company “into a dominant position in China's tech manufacturing” sector and made her a billionaire. In 2015, when Lens Technology went public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Zhou rose to national prominence. Lucrative new contracts with carmakers such as BYD, Tesla and BMW followed.

How Zhou Qunfei bounced back from a $6.8 billion loss

Donald Trump nearly proved her undoing, noted Bloomberg in 2018. Zhou Qunfei lost 66% of her fortune, or $6.8 billion, when the US/China trade war erupted, prompting a sell-off of Apple's suppliers. But as the decade turned, Lens bounced back. Last year, Zhou's wealth rose a further 75% when Lens pulled off a dual-listing in Hong Kong. But Zhou Qunfei is still most at home pacing the factory floor, says Tatler. “She'll dip her hands into a tray of water to check if the temperature is just right” and “can explain the intricacies of heating glass in a potassium ion bath”. She has the same intense – often obsessive – interest in operational detail as Elon Musk and, like him, is famous for sleeping on site to troubleshoot. Doubtless, they had much to discuss over their pan-fried pork buns.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Elon Musk is an abrasive and frequently infuriating presence and is the focal point of loathing for the establishment. In the UK, members of the Labour cabinet view him as a threat to the administrative order. Yet he is a living example of the Great Man theory of history; “great” meaning a person of consequence, rather than good. The theory is that a single, determined will can move humanity more than the masses. The modern world would rather fiddle and legislate while Elon Musk seeks to act and solve civilisational challenges.

No number of committee meetings could conjure a Starship booster returning from the edge of orbit. This skyscraper-sized rocket fell through the sky only to be plucked to safety by mechanical chopsticks. A decade ago, this would have appeared only in science fiction, but today it is a reality. This is just one example of the way Musk's maniacal focus pushes the boundaries of the possible. Musk has many detractors, particularly in political circles. But politicians curate their personas to seek approval; people like Musk actually drive progress. History will record the man who caught the skyscraper-sized rocket long after his critics are forgotten.

Elon Musk is dedicated to human progress

Musk was already very rich by the age of 27 after netting $22 million from the sale of his first business, Zip2. The sale of PayPal a few years later made him another $180 million. He was barely 30 and possessed enough wealth to purchase a private island and vanish from public view. Instead, he chose to dedicate himself to “the mission” of human progress. He views wealth as fuel for missions rather than a reward for success.

He founded SpaceX and funded Tesla as attempts to solve humanity's challenges. He viewed the stagnation of aerospace and the slow development of electric cars as problems that required a focused, engineering-based response. By committing $100 million to rockets and $70 million to electric vehicles, he bet most of his wealth that he could solve the problems. He couldn't do this alone, but his willingness to bet big acted as a radical sorting mechanism for recruitment. Elite engineers joined because they recognised a founder willing to risk bankruptcy in the pursuit of a better future.

In 2008 the dream almost ended as both firms spiralled toward collapse. SpaceX had endured three launch failures and could afford one more failure before bankruptcy. Tesla was weeks away from exhausting its cash. Musk was borrowing money for rent while sleeping on factory floors to supervise production. Many would sacrifice one company to save the other, but he refused. Only a contract win from US space agency Nasa prevented liquidation. This helped create a culture in his companies that treats adversity as a mere stepping stone towards achieving the objective.

“Idiot Index”: the key to Elon Musk's success

The key to his success is to focus on what is possible, not what has been done before. Musk operates on the principle that “the only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation”. His method is to strip a problem down to fundamental parts and then reason towards the goal. Most managers make incremental changes to existing models; Musk rejects precedent, believing the way things have always been done is irrelevant to the way they should be. He applies a metric known as the “Idiot Index” to maintain this discipline. This measures the ratio of a finished product's cost to the costs of its raw materials. A high ratio, such as is typical for space rockets, indicates an inefficient process. Musk expects his engineers to identify the best and worst parts of their systems through this lens at all times. This approach allowed Tesla to cut battery costs and manufacturing time by focusing on the component elements, not simply the price of the finished product.

He puts these principles into practice through five steps. First, question every step in the process and seek out flaws. Second, cut out any unnecessary part or process. Third, simplify or optimise, but only after part two is exhausted so as to avoid optimising a process that should not be there. Fourth, accelerate. Fifth and finally, automate. This sequence ensures engineers never waste effort on perfecting an irrelevance.

The Tesla Giga Press is an example. Traditionally, car manufacturers built underbodies by welding 70 or more separate parts together. Most accepted this complexity because they followed tradition. Musk looked at the simplicity of toy car manufacturing and wondered why full-sized vehicles were not cast as single pieces. He commissioned the creation of the largest casting machines in the world to produce a car underbody in one operation. This eliminated hundreds of robots from the production line and drastically improved structural rigidity. By scaling up the logic of a toy, he proved that a better, cheaper and stronger vehicle could be built more quickly and with fewer potential areas for failure.

Twitter layoffs illustrated Price's Law

The acquisition of Twitter (now called X) and the changes brought about there was an experiment in Price's Law. This states that in any productive domain, the square root of the total number of people involved produces 50% of the results. So in a firm of 10,000 people, 100 individuals would account for 50% of the total value. This suggests that most people in a large workforce are redundant. When Musk reduced the headcount at Twitter by 80%, critics predicted a collapse. They assume that productivity is a function of the number of hours worked by the average employee. Price's Law reveals that productivity is concentrated in a tiny elite.

Price's Law is a counter to Marxian economics, which assumes that the worth of a product derives from the labour time required to produce it, seeing progress as a collective process. Musk works on the idea that you should only employ the real talent. Even then, once an employee is no longer driving the mission forward, they are replaced by someone who will. In X, he maintained the output of the platform while shedding the bureaucratic weight that had stifled innovation. The results were a faster and more feature-rich platform.

The modern Western world is choked by layers of managers managing managers who contribute nothing useful. These individuals thrive on the belief that committees lead to better outcomes. In high-stakes engineering and innovation, however, the many are a burden on the few who actually build. This “special forces” model of management prioritises individual brilliance over collective averages. By identifying and motivating this core, Musk forces a level of productivity that bureaucracies can't replicate.

Elon Musk has achieved orbital hegemony

Musk is perhaps best known for his relationship with Donald Trump or his management of Tesla, but his most impressive achievement is SpaceX. SpaceX has achieved a global monopoly through sheer competence. By 2025, SpaceX was responsible for delivering about 90% of the total weight of usable cargo moved into space. Most of the rest was handled by China. Musk achieved this by refusing to accept the “aerospace welfare state” that had defined the industry. Since the 1960s, firms such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin operated under cost-plus contracts, a system that essentially rewarded inefficiency where the government reimburses all costs and adds a guaranteed fee for profit, ensuring that the longer a project overran, the more the contractor was paid.

Musk set SpaceX's engineers to build rockets that were not just functional, but also economically superior. The result was to go back to first principles on every conceivable part of a space rocket, from materials used, to complexity of design and, most notably, reusability. Before SpaceX, throwing away a multi-million-dollar rocket after a single flight was normal. Musk viewed this as an absurdity, akin to discarding a Boeing 747 after a one-way trip across the Atlantic. SpaceX pioneered the landing and reuse of boosters and has reduced the cost of access to space by an order of magnitude. The Pentagon estimates that this shift has already saved the US taxpayer more than $40 billion in procurement costs.

The difference between SpaceX's “special forces” engineering culture and Boeing's bureaucracy is clear when you compare their passenger spacecraft. Despite receiving billions more in funding, Boeing's programme was plagued by years of delays and emergency technical failures, while SpaceX's leaner team delivered a reliable service for 60% less cost per seat. This performance gap continues to widen. The introduction of the SpaceX Starship V3 is intended to enable full reusability. Each engine generates more thrust than a jumbo jet, while the system is designed to be flown, landed and relaunched with high frequency. Soon SpaceX might render traditional expendable rockets obsolete.

Elon Musk's superpower

Ten years ago, Elon Musk was influential but relatively uncontroversial; his alignment with Trump has since made him a more polarising figure. But this political foray too reflects an engineering mindset rather than a thirst for office. Musk views the US state as a legacy system suffering from bloat. He applied his management process to the federal bureaucracy with characteristic ruthlessness. An initial audit uncovered “zombie payments” worth hundreds of billions of dollars. These funds were being sent to individuals who were either deceased, or, according to government records, not born yet. This foray into public service was only ever temporary and he completed a 100-day contract. His reason for doing it was that he believed it was the right thing to do. He didn't care that alignment with Trump would draw fury.

Musk believes that one of his greatest powers is simply not caring what people think of him. This insulation stems from his neuro-atypicality. Musk, who has said he has Asperger syndrome, tends to prioritise data over social cues; ignoring consensus and focusing on physical constraints, often treating social norms as secondary to progress. In the UK, energy secretary Ed Miliband has branded Musk a “dangerous person” and told him to keep out of this country and its politics. The irony is that Miliband, a man who has spent his entire professional life in non-jobs and a zealous proponent of net-zero, is criticising the man who has done more for sustainable energy through Tesla and SolarCity (yet another of Musk's firms) than any person alive. British ministers talk about some better future, but it's people like Musk who are building it. Politicians can only legislate, they can't magic into existence space-based clean energy (another of Musk's missions).

Let history be the judge of Elon Musk

Musk is a difficult man. We should not expect him to be easy or agreeable, as such traits are rarely found in those who actually change the world. If it were not for people like him dreaming about what is over the next hill, humanity would still be a small group of cavemen huddled together in fear. History will judge Musk by the 250-tonne rocket he caught and the progress he forced, not by the social approval he never sought.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Investment writers are always at risk of hyperbole, so it is always tempting to begin by saying that these are exceptionally uncertain times for growing and keeping wealth. Yet look back over the last century or so and one has to admit this is not true – there have been many eras that were far more perilous.

Instead, it is more probably accurate to say that conditions are becoming more uncertain after an extremely long spell in which the world became unusually safe in many respects. The 1980s marked the beginning of an unprecedently good patch for capitalism and financial markets. There were upsets along the way – the crash of 1987, the dotcom bust in 2000 – but these were blips within a long-term trend in which economics, politics and geopolitics kept us on an improving course.

This began to shift in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, when the tensions that had been building up started to become apparent, but the lessons were not learned in time. From the middle of the 2010s onwards, conditions clearly began to shift. The pivotal year was 2016, with a series of global events – including Brexit, the election of Donald Trump as US president and Xi Jinping starting to consolidate power with a more aggressive vision for China’s role in the world.

Since then, turmoil has piled up, including a pandemic whose social impact is still being felt, rising concern about the impact of artificial intelligence, and wars in Ukraine and now the Middle East. So far, stockmarkets have continued to shrug all of this off and set new highs, but one cannot assume this state of affairs will continue. MoneyWeek’s long-standing view is that a more volatile world will sooner or later mean more volatile markets.

This is the backdrop to our wealth supplement, in which we focus on ideas and services to help readers who have built up wealth to maintain it and pass it on. We are grateful to all our contributors and interviewees for putting it together.

Highlights include: a look at how to mitigate the impact of recent inheritance tax changes; interviews with Caledonia Investments, Majedie Investments and RIT Capital Partners on how they look after wealth for future generations of their founding families; and some thoughts on the issue of passing on digital assets.

We hope you find it useful.

~ Cris Sholto Heaton

Handbags are useful things. Not only can you put your stuff in them, but they can also, to a certain extent, insulate you from the skittishness of investors. Sales of luxury goods maker Hermès' ready-to-wear range were flat in the last quarter, but the French label's leather-goods division, which includes the coveted Birkin and Kelly handbags, actually grew 9.4%. Still, “the halo effect of the Birkin doesn't make Hermès completely immune from a slowdown, it just buys the company more time than its rivals”, says Carol Ryan in The Wall Street Journal. But the premium that Birkins and Kellys command on the secondary market has come under pressure.

That raises questions “as to whether Hermès's allure is waning amid a slew of new products from rivals, most notably Chanel, but also LVMH's Dior”, says Andrea Felsted on Bloomberg. The volume of Birkin and Kelly handbags on the secondary market in the US is three times bigger than in 2020, according to analysts at Swiss bank UBS, which suggests demand has slumped. That said, the bags still command a premium over their store-bought counterparts, even if rival Chanel isn't exactly helping. Chanel has “caused a frenzy with handbags designed by its new creative director, Matthieu Blazy,” says Felsted. “Resale values for Hermès bags have moderated… Notably, the premium at which Hermès Birkin, Kelly, Mini Kelly and Kelly Pochette change hands in the secondary market compared with retail prices has fallen from its peak in 2022”. That doesn't make them a bad investment. A recent study by vintage handbag shop FashioNica found that while the US benchmark S&P 500 stock index returned 43% between 2022 and now (ie, a full market cycle, according to the authors), the Hermès Mini Kelly II bag did even better, gaining 302%. Good things do come in small sizes.

For a long time, the Birkin and Kelly 25s (so called because the base of the bags measures 25cm across) were considered mini bags. Then, in 2019, Hermès released the Birkin 20 – in particular the Birkin 20 Faubourg, modelled on the Hermès' flagship shop front in Paris. In the years since, says Aurelie Vassy for Sotheby's, “the Birkin 20 has evolved from a conceptual design into one of the most sought-after mini handbags in the collector market”. “While Hermès has not officially released a standard leather version [of the Birkin 20], collectors anticipate one based on the success of the Mini Kelly II,” says Vassy. “If introduced, it would probably become one of the most in-demand bags in the Hermès line-up.”

What to look for in a mini bag

Hermès mini bags hold their value particularly well on the secondary market. Several Mini Kellys in exotic skins and rare finishes appeared at Heritage Auctions' spring sale last month, including one Matte Vert D'eau Alligator, which sold for $41,250, including the buyer's premium. The features that determine a bag's value are the material, the colour, vintage, rarity, whether it is a limited edition, which styles are currently in fashion and the overall condition of the bag.

Mini bags made from exotic skins, such as Niloticus Crocodile or Matte Alligator, are sought after by collectors. Sotheby's has a Beton Matte Mississippiensis Alligator Birkin 25 with gold hardware from 2023 to buy now for $98,000. The secondary market also places large premiums on new seasonal colours within the first year after release, says Aurelie Vassy for Sotheby's. If offered the opportunity to buy a new mini bag, it can make sense to sell into the resale market during the period when “demand is high and supply remains limited”. That's doubly true if the style is bold and the bag has attracted the attention of other collectors. Such limited editions can command hefty premiums. In March 2025, a limited edition Day Faubourg Birkin fetched $152,400 with Sotheby's in New York, which was slightly above its high pre-sale estimate.

The mark of a good collection isn't how big it is, but how well curated. So, don't be afraid to sell some of your collection if it means you can acquire bags that are a better fit. “As collectors [also] become more experienced, many begin to focus less on what is newly available and more on what is increasingly difficult to find,” says Vassy. “This is often the point at which a Birkin collection shifts from boutique buying to true collecting.”

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Dumbleton Hall, Cotswolds

The historic Grade II-listed Dumbleton Hall, situated in the north Cotswolds, has recently reopened following a two-year restoration, which has returned the property to its former glory as an elegant country manor. The tranquil 16-acre estate includes a lake and walled gardens, making this a quintessential countryside escape, located minutes from the picturesque villages of Broadway and Winchcombe. Dumbleton Hall's history – having hosted literary and historical figures, including Charles Dickens and the Mitford sisters – is reflected across its 34 individually designed bedrooms and grand public spaces, blending Belle Époque refinement with 1920s glamour and William Morris prints.

On the culinary front, executive chef Dean Westcar champions seasonal, locally sourced Cotswolds produce at the hotel's main Cedar 1905 restaurant, while the Orangerie will offer intimate fine dining from August. To work up an appetite, various walking trails are within easy reach, as are the towns of Stratford-upon-Avon and Cheltenham for a night out.

From £380 a night, on a B&B basis for two people, dumbletonhall.co.uk

Pine Trees Hotel, Scottish Highlands

Pine Trees Hotel is tucked away in ten acres of woodland on the edge of Pitlochry in the Scottish Highlands. It is, in other words, a quiet retreat near the Cairngorms. The boutique property has recently undergone an extensive refurbishment, blending Victorian architecture with contemporary design across 32 individually styled rooms and suites. Guests are invited to unwind in the tranquil surroundings by embracing the local concept of coorie, meaning “to get cosy” in Scots.

At the hotel's restaurant, Fauna, executive chef Tom Scade celebrates seasonal Scottish produce, while at the stylish Flora bar an extensive whisky selection is offered, along with the popular Pine Trees Margarita cocktail.

This summer, Pine Trees Hotel is launching a new “Woodland Wellness” concept, which includes access to an Estonian Iglucraft igloo-shaped sauna, plunge pool, and wood-fired hot tub. Later in the season, the property will also unveil East Haugh House, a new 11-bedroom exclusive-use residence perfect for larger groups.

From £358 a night, pinetreeshotel.co.uk

Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane

The iconic Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane recently unveiled 14 newly renovated suites. London-based studio Interiors with Art lent a hand in designing the interiors, fusing the hotel's subtle Art Deco features with contemporary style. The team drew inspiration from the nearby Hyde Park for the sycamore wood panelling, for example, along with the brushed metal finishes, Murano glass lighting and warm autumnal palette.

On the fifth floor, sweeping views of the park can be had from the spacious Presidential Suite. It has a formal dining room with a butler's pantry, bespoke marble accents and a fireplace. The Royal Terrace Suite has its own vast garden terrace, making it ideal for entertaining or relaxing in nature despite being in the heart of Mayfair, while the Garden Suite overlooks the hotel's own private garden, blending indoor and outdoor living with bronze-accented interiors and a spacious landscaped terrace.

From £4,700 a night in the suites, fourseasons.com/london

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Savings accounts have battled their way back onto Brits’ radar, offering attractive rates to beat the Bank of England’s base rate and inflation. But when it comes to getting more bang for your buck, they have some stiff competition from tax-efficient pensions, for those who already hold an emergency savings pot.

Inflation is slowing, with the latest data for January putting CPI inflation at 3%. Consequently, the Bank of England is gradually reducing the base interest rate – it is currently 3.75%, with the next BoE decision due on 19 March.

The best cash savings account rates are currently around 4.5%, and many households feel they are finally being rewarded for holding cash.

However, for higher- and additional rate taxpayers, a significant portion of those gains can disappear once tax and inflation are factored in, according to new analysis from Standard Life.

Even at inflation-beating best buy rates, higher rate taxpayers could lose over two-thirds of their savings gains to HMRC and the creeping increase in the cost of living, the number crunching found.

Mike Ambery, retirement savings director at Standard Life, said: “Higher interest rates can lull people into thinking their cash is working harder than it really is.

“Frozen income tax thresholds are pushing more people into higher income tax brackets each year and the amount of interest lost to tax could come as quite a surprise, especially with inflation to consider too.”

Bear in mind, in this article we are assuming you already have a healthy emergency savings buffer of between three and six months outgoings, which is what the experts recommend.

The impact of tax on savings

Many savers make use of ISAs to keep all of the gains they make from savings interest. But those who have already used the full £20,000 annual ISA limit and are now holding cash in taxable savings accounts, may face a much larger bill than expected due to the savings tax trap.

With income tax bands frozen until 2031, more people are moving into higher and additional rate brackets each year – in what’s known as fiscal drag – making tax on interest a growing issue for households who may not realise they’re affected.

Once your savings interest exceeds tax-free allowances, it is taxed at your marginal income tax rate, so 20% for basic rate taxpayers, 40% for those in the higher band and 45% for additional rate taxpayers. From April 2027, this jumps to 22%, 42% and 47% respectively.

Higher rate taxpayers only need around £11,000 in a non-ISA cash account earning 4.5% interest before their £500 personal savings allowance (PSA) – the amount of savings interest they can earn tax-free – is used up and interest begins to be taxed. Even before inflation is considered, this reduces returns significantly.

For higher rate taxpayers with larger amounts held outside an ISA in taxable accounts, the benefits of even the best buy cash savings rates are eroded away further by tax and inflation.

For a higher rate taxpayer holding £30,000 in a taxable savings account, for example:

• £1,350 interest is earned at a 4.5% rate
• After the personal savings allowance is used up and tax applied, this falls to £1,010
• After allowing for 2% inflation, the real gain is just £402

Basic rate taxpayers, who have a bigger £1,000 personal savings allowance, need around £22,000 in a top rate savings account to incur a tax bill. By comparison, additional rate taxpayers pay tax from the very first £1 of interest because they have no PSA at all.

The impact of tax relief on pensions

On a purely numbers basis, when measuring the gains on savings accounts next to pensions, there is really no competition – although you must be willing to lock your money away for a long time.

Pension contributions are one of the most tax-efficient ways to save, for those able to take a longer-term view with their money.

Higher and additional rate taxpayers, in particular, benefit from higher tax relief, giving their contributions a significant immediate boost.

For example, the same £30,000 invested into a pension could lead to a gain after one year of £21,103, according to Standard Life analysis, assuming 5% annual investment growth, 40% tax relief on the whole £30,000 and allowing for 2% inflation.

This is more than 52 times greater than the returns on a taxable cash account, and without any immediate income tax bill.

Pensions are usually taxed as income as they are withdrawn, beyond the 25% tax-free lump sum.

Source: Standard Life. Inflation calculated on the value after tax on interest and charges for taxable cash account and ISA, and after tax relief, investment growth and charges on the pension. Up to £20,000 each year can be deposited in an ISA.

Ambery, from Standard Life, said: “While ISAs are a solid tax‑efficient option, pensions are where the tax system truly works in your favour. For a higher‑rate taxpayer, a qualifying £30,000 contribution can instantly become £50,000 through tax relief. If you’re planning for the long-term, that head start is incredibly difficult for cash savings to compete with.”

Pensions vs savings: Which is best for my money?

The quick answer is a pension will give you a much higher return on your money than even large sums in some of the best paying savings accounts – although you won’t have access to it in the short-term. But the real answer is, if you can, have both.

A savings account might work better for you if you need access to your cash quickly, for example if it is where you keep your emergency fund. By comparison, pensions are savings for the long term, so you’ll need to be willing and able to tie your money up until at least age 55 (rising soon to 57) before you reap the benefit.

If you’re juggling looking after older parents and adult children or even grandchildren, experts have warned you could be putting yourself at financial risk.

The so-called ‘sandwich generation’ refers to typically middle-aged adults who find themselves ‘sandwiched’ between caring for their ageing parents and supporting their own children.

About 1.4 million people in the UK were acting as ‘sandwich’ carers between 2021 and 2023, according to the latest data available from the Office for National Statistics. This is largely a result of life expectancy rising and more people starting families later in life.

Balancing the emotional, physical and financial demands of caring for both generations at the same time can come at a cost to health, wellbeing and carer’s finances. This impact is also not felt equally, with women more likely to care and take on a larger responsibility for care, widening the gender pension gap.

High net worth individuals (HNWIs) in the UK are increasingly propping up multiple generations of their families with either their working income, pensions or ISAs, placing significant pressure on their own financial wellbeing, according to research.

Wealth management firm Saltus surveyed 2,000 people with assets of £250,000 or more, and discovered a growing number of HNWIs are providing both downward and upward financial support, often at the expense of their own financial goals.

The report revealed almost three quarters (73%) of HNW parents are providing financial support to adult children, two thirds (68%) are supporting their own ageing parents or grandparents and as many as one in eight (12%) are doing both.

Now lawyers specialising in advising older people and those in vulnerable circumstances have said those in the sandwich generation must act to safeguard their own financial future.

Rebecca Minto, senior associate at law firm Mills & Reeve and director at the Association of Lifetime Lawyers, said: “Being part of the sandwich generation can take a significant toll, often leading to increased personal stress and financial strain.

“There are, however, practical steps that can be taken to reduce the impact on pensions, safeguard financial security, and make later years more manageable.”

Checklist for the sandwich generation planning ahead

1. Set up the right type of will

Taking timely advice on legitimate estate planning initiatives is important. “Having a will is great, but is it the right type of will? Is it flexible, protective and tax efficient?” said Minto.

The ‘right’ will may incorporate a structure designed to provide asset‑protection benefits, she said. “Will trusts, for example, can be useful in protecting assets from care fees in certain scenarios,” Minto pointed out.

A will trust is a trust established under the terms of a person’s will and only comes into effect after they die. It’s basically a legal arrangement whereby someone’s will states that certain assets should be placed into a trust when they die. The trust is then managed by trustees on behalf of the beneficiaries.

They can be used to reduce the amount of accessible capital in care fees calculations, and so leave more for the next generation.

Not all wills are created equal, however – lawyers have recently flagged a potential problem with very popular ‘mirror wills’ for example.

2. Be careful when setting up a trust

Trusts can be useful in certain contexts, such as inheritance tax planning, grandparents wishing to support the payment of school fees and meeting the future needs of vulnerable beneficiaries.

But it is also important to be aware of red flags when looking for trusts, said Minto.

So-called ‘asset protection trusts’, for example, often promoted by unregulated businesses, claim to protect you from care home fees and save inheritance tax whilst they often do the opposite – leading to years of financial worry and legal fees.

“Make sure to take advice from a reputable and qualified adviser, such as a member of the Association of Lifetime Lawyers, who are experts in looking after people in vulnerable circumstances,” Minto said.

3. Set up lasting powers of attorney – for parents and adult children

A lasting power of attorney (LPA) is arguably the most important document a person can ever make because of the power that they confer on those appointed to make decisions for them during their lifetime at a time when they’re no longer able to make them for themselves.

Minto said: “Don’t assume LPAs are just for older people. Think children on gap years or families on winter sports trips. And don’t leave it until someone is showing signs of incapacity to make one.”

If there are no LPAs and the person has lost capacity to make them, then you’re into the territory of the Court of Protection. “It’s an altogether more complex, time consuming and costly process and, if you are the one lacking in capacity, you won’t get to decide who is appointed to make decisions for you,” said Minto.

4. Ask your Local Authority for a free care and support assessment

The Local Authority has a duty to carry out a free assessment of an adult's needs for care and support as well as a carer's needs for support and to consider how to meet those needs where it appears that they “may have need for support”.

The person’s financial position is irrelevant at the initial assessment stage. “It can be a useful starting point for determining what options there are for needs to be met even if these have to be funded on a private paying basis,” said Minto.

5. Check if your loved ones qualify for Continuing Healthcare

People with complex health needs may qualify for Continuing Healthcare (CHC) which is free health and social care arranged and funded exclusively by the NHS.

The process can be quite complex and often requires a detailed assessment of health needs. Eligibility is based on the nature, complexity, and intensity of care needs rather than diagnosis alone. CHC can be provided in a person’s home, not just in a care home setting.

If someone doesn’t qualify for CHC, they may qualify for NHS-funded nursing care, which is where the NHS pays for the nursing care component of nursing home fees. It’s paid directly to the care home towards the cost of the nursing care only.

Minto warned: “The Local Authority has rules around deprivation of capital and can treat property given away (either outright or into trust) as capital available to be taken into account for care home fee purposes if it can demonstrate that this was done to avoid it being applied towards the payment of a person’s care fees.”

6. Be cautious when signing care contracts

Don’t just sign care contracts without reading the terms and also think about whether you need to seek independent advice on the terms. They’re not always in a resident’s favour, Minto said.

Whoever signs the contract is going to be bound to the terms, so thought also needs to be given as to who should sign the contract and in what capacity they are signing.

7. Consider getting expert welfare benefits advice

Have you maximised income? Are parents/carers in receipt of everything they’re entitled to?

Aside from CHC, there’s also Funded Nursing Care – where the NHS pays a flat-rate contribution directly to the nursing home to cover the cost of the nursing element of someone’s care. It only applies to people who live in a nursing home and need nursing care from a registered nurse. It’s not mean-tested.

You could also check eligibility for Attendance Allowance, for people over state pension age, as well as Personal Independence Payment (PIP). PIP is designed to help with extra living costs for people aged 16 to state pension age who have a long-term physical or mental health condition or disability.

“The welfare benefits system is complex and there are lots of rules. Expert welfare benefits advice is available from the Citizens Advice Bureau and charities such as Age UK or Carers UK, and reviews provided by these professionals can often be useful to identify what can be claimed which isn’t already,” said Minto.

Local Authorities can, in some circumstances, for example, provide:

• Respite care and short breaks
• Equipment, home adaptations and care services
• Financial support with social care (means-tested)

Individuals may also be eligible for things like:

• Carer’s Allowance
• Employment and Support Allowance
• Child Benefit
• Bereavement Support Payment
• Housing Benefit
• Council tax reductions

8. Don’t avoid difficult conversations

Whether it’s about finances, care homes or end of life planning, having frank and open conversations within the family about these emotive topics can be helpful for everyone concerned.

“Documenting views, wishes and feelings can be particularly reassuring so that those involved know that they were doing what you wanted,” said Minto.

For example, most people would only wish to go into a care home as a last resort and would prefer to have carers coming into their own home or have live-in carers.

Finally, consider getting advice from an appropriately qualified, trusted, adviser such as an accredited Lifetime Lawyer.

We look at how Generation X falls behind on retirement savings and how to boost your pension savings in separate articles.

In the next couple of decades, more than $100 trillion (£74.8 trillion) of global wealth is expected to pass from one generation to the next. But many of the world’s wealthy are worried about securing a legacy that reflects their values, according to a new report.

Wealthy individuals who don’t set out a clear plan for their money face the risk of family conflict, missed opportunities and the erosion of their fortunes as the Great Wealth Transfer unfolds.

It’s not just financial assets that could be lost over time, but non-financial wealth. In a survey of 1,000 wealthy individuals around the world, nearly three quarters (72%) said their legacy is defined more by the passing on of their values than their financial inheritance, HSBC Private Bank found.

When it does come to inheritances, opinions vary among the wealthy on how they want to spend or pass on their assets. One third (35%) want to enjoy it with their family rather than pass it on after their death. Just over a quarter (28%) want to pass it on while alive, and less than a quarter (23%) plan to do so after their death.

How to create a lasting legacy

Even as wealthy individuals concentrate on building their fortunes, many remain uncertain about what they want their wealth to achieve after they are gone, despite a desire for their legacy to reflect their values, the HSBC report found.

But the wealthy individuals who are best equipped to create a lasting legacy, according to the findings, have done three very specific things:

Set out a wealth philosophy

By having a clear set of intentions for their assets, wealthy individuals can identify the purpose of their fortunes, and the values that the senior generation wish to preserve for the future.

This helps most when it is written down in black and white, so there can be no confusion about wishes. So as well as a formal and legally binding will, many legal experts now recommend a letter of wishes too.

Russell Prior OBE, head of family governance, family office advisory and philanthropy at HSBC, said: “Many wealth creators are so busy building their fortunes that they have under-invested in preparing the next generation.

“What they need is a clear, well-developed wealth philosophy, involving a much wider set of considerations, than just setting out plans for their financial assets.”

Engage the family

Early and open communication is crucial when discussing inheritances and legacy planning. But conversation can be difficult when some parents lack confidence in their children’s readiness to manage wealth.

The survey reflects this – more than two thirds (70%) of those asked said they want to delay transferring their wealth to help instil financial responsibility into the next generation.

Ann Ling, head of wealth planning and advisory for Asia Pacific at HSBC, said: “Wealth brings freedoms and a lot of convenience, but at the same time, the senior generation know there are also many responsibilities.”

Similarly, children can also feel pressure from that burden of expectation, as they are often worried about making mistakes. As their parents have often been so successful in business and creating wealth, they often feel they are unable to measure up.

This is why strong communication channels between generations are crucial. “From my experience, I've never seen people complain about having the family discussion too early,” Ling said.

“To achieve a lasting legacy, families need open communication about what they are passionate about and can unify around.”

Unify behind a cause

One way to build family unity is to back a cause all members can support. Within the Great Wealth Transfer, approximately $18 trillion (£13.4 trillion) is expected to go to good causes, according to analysis by Cerulli Associates in 2024.

“Philanthropy can be a powerful way to create a legacy that can last long after the wealth creator has gone, and which can simultaneously unify the family,” said Prior.

Charitable giving is also a smart estate planning strategy that can mean your loved ones avoid some inheritance tax.

Ultimately, planning ahead is essential. Family members that engage with each other on the purpose and impact of their collective wealth will be well placed to build something enduring.

Ling said: “Combining aligned philanthropic values with good planning gives a legacy relevance and energy. This will also help to perpetuate harmony in future generations.”

But failing to do so brings risks that go beyond financial inefficiency: it can create conflict that threatens a lasting legacy.

Luxury hotels aren’t necessarily out of reach for holidaygoers looking to indulge without an eye-watering price tag.

We walk you through things you need to consider when booking luxury hotels, and how to decide what’s worth spending money on.

How to find the best luxury hotels

When choosing a luxury hotel, it’s important to identify what really matters to you for your stay

1. Consider a luxury staycation

If you want luxury without having to pay too much or fly to a different country, a four-star staycation can be the ‘sweet spot’.

Hotels.com has ranked the best four-star hotels across Britain when it comes to value for money. It has done so by analysing year-on-year daily costs on average in domestic hotspots in 2025.

Source: Hotels.com’s 2026 Hotel Price Index

We discuss the best hotels in the world in another article.

2. Book early

Timing matters. This holds true for everything, whether you’re looking for cheap business and first class flights, sorting out travel insurance, or planning a luxury stay. Booking ahead of time — especially outside peak seasons — can be the easiest way to lock in lower prices at luxury accommodations. And if you’re flexible with your dates, you can discover deals that are hard to match otherwise.

We reveal the best time to go on holiday this summer in a separate piece.

3. Sign up for loyalty programmes

Many luxury hotels have loyalty rewards that offer you points, perks, or member-only rates. For example, if you regularly stay with Hilton, their loyalty program, Hilton Honors, can earn you points towards a continental breakfast, premium WiFi, a fifth night free and all-inclusive spa discounts.

You could also exchange supermarket vouchers for money off at different hotels. You could use your Tesco Clubcard vouchers at Hotels.com, Best Western, Warner Hotels, Mercure, Novotel, Butlin’s and Macdonald Hotels and Resorts.

4. Opt for package or all-inclusive deals

Holiday packages, where you bundle your hotel stay with flights, car rentals, or experiences through travel agencies, can be a good way to unlock discounts. In some instances, luxury hotels offer special packages during holidays or events, like spa weekends or gourmet dining experiences included in your stay.

Rory McIlroy has re-entered the record books after hanging on to the coveted green jacket at the Masters on 12 April.

This makes the 36-year-old the first consecutive winner at the Augusta National since Tiger Woods, and he now matches English legend Nick Faldo’s tally of six majors.

The Northern Irish golfer has solidified his name among golf elites; aside from McIlroy, only Tiger Woods has completed a Career Grand Slam in the last 50 years, and McIlroy is the first European to do so.

McIlroy has accumulated a substantial amount of money from tournament winnings and sponsorship deals.

So, what is his net worth, and where does he rank on the list of the richest people in the world?

Rory McIlroy’s net worth explained

Having won multiple championships, Rory McIlroy is one of the wealthiest players in the world of golf. His most recent payout was £3.3 million after winning the 2026 Masters.

According to Golf Monthly, his on-course earnings until the end of 2025 stood at just under $190 million, and he also may have picked up close to $300 million in tournament prize winnings, appearance fees and bonuses since going professional in 2007.

The Sunday Times Rich List 2025 estimates his net worth is £260 million, making him one of the richest people under 40 in the UK.

Rory McIlroy’s early life and professional career

Rory McIlroy was born on 4 May 1989 in Holywood in County Down, Northern Ireland. He was first introduced to golf at the age of two when his father, a golfer himself, bought him a set of plastic clubs.

McIlroy was a child prodigy. At just three, he had gained a reputation at the Holywood Golf Club for hitting 40-yard drives. Four years later, he became the youngest-ever member of the club. When he was ten, he told BBC Sport about his ambition of winning all major championships.

To fund McIlroy’s ambitions of playing golf at a professional level, his parents took on extra jobs. According to BelfastLive, his father would work 100 hours a week, while his mother looked after her son during the day and worked night shifts to make ends meet.

In 1998, at the age of nine, McIlroy tasted his first significant international victory at the U10 World Championship in Florida. He then went on to win Ireland its first title since 1987 in the 2007 European Amateur Team Championship, where he defeated France in the stroke-play position.

Since turning professional in 2007, he has made a combined 531 appearances across the DP World Tour and PGA Tour, according to the European Tour. His first win came on the DP World Tour in 2009 at the Dubai Desert Classic – he has won it a record four times since.

He became World Number One in 2012 and has spent a total of 122 weeks at the top spot of the Official World Golf Ranking.

Rory McIlroy now has six Majors to his name, three WGC Championships, a win at the Scottish Open, 11 wins on the DP World Tour, and 20 on the PGA Tour. Now 36, he is the second-oldest player to complete the Career Grand Slam.

Rory McIlroy’s investment portfolio

The golfer is also an avid investor, making millions off the course. In 2019, he formed Symphony Ventures, a venture capital firm in Dublin, which made a $250 million equity investment in TickPick, Bloomberg reports. Symphony Ventures’ portfolio includes high-profile investments such as Whoop, Puttery, Hyperice and Jupiter. In March 2026, Whoop’s valuation reached a staggering $10.1 billion.

In 2022, McIlroy teamed up with Tiger Woods on TMRW Sports, which was valued at about $500 million in 2024, according to Bloomberg. The venture created TGL, an indoor golf league.

Rory launched a sports fund with investment firm TPG just weeks after winning his first Masters title. According to SportsPro, the US-based firm holds assets worth a combined $246 billion under management.

McIlroy has also invested €200 million in the Alpine F1 team, according to ESPN.

As for real estate, McIlroy lives in the Bear’s Club golf community in Jupiter, Florida, which was previously owned by two-time Open champion Ernie Els. While it cost the golfer $11 million to purchase the property in 2012, it’s now expected to be worth double.

According to Sports Illustrated, McIlroy also owns a $12.3 million mansion in California, an apartment in New York, a villa in the United Arab Emirates, and a 200-acre castle in Northern Ireland – providing more than enough storage space for his trophies.

How much does Rory McIlroy make in brand endorsements?

McIlroy is known as one of the most marketable athletes in the world. His current sponsors are Nike, Swiss luxury watchmaker Omega, insurance company FM, and NBC Sports’ digital golf membership Golfpass, to name a few. Golf Monthly estimates his yearly earnings from sponsorships to be around $35 million.

In 2013, he signed endorsement deals with Bose and Omega, and a 10-year deal with Nike, which was worth up to $250 million. The BBC called it “one of the most lucrative deals in British sport”.

In 2017, Nike extended the deal for another 10 years for apparel only, worth $200 million. It let McIlroy sign a $100 million deal with TaylorMade for equipment, lasting a decade, according to The Guardian.

There’s no straightforward answer when it comes to knowing how you should manage your money, but applying some simple money habits can help ensure you save adequately for your retirement, build a pot of wealth for your future life goals, and keep you out of debt.

Here are my favourite four rules for managing your money when it comes to pension planning, budgeting and investing.

1. How much money should I invest? The ‘Rule of 72’ to double your money

There’s no point in trying to time the market to make significant gains on the stock market, even if it is tempting to do so.

The best and worst days are often very close, and by trying to time your trades based on predictions is very risky and you could lose money fast.

The best strategy is to invest consistently each month so you can take advantage of lows and enjoy the highs, known as pound cost averaging.

But, if you want to double your money, take a look at the ‘Rule of 72’, which helps you work out how much you would need to invest to double your wealth. Here’s how it works:

Take the estimated rate of return on your investments. Then, divide 72 by this figure. If the estimated return on your investment is 8% then it's 72÷8 = 9. Using the rule of 72, it means it would take you nine years to double your money with that rate of return.

The higher your return, the faster you can get there.

If you invested £10,000 at 30, and your average return was 8%, it is estimated you will have around £20,000 before 40.

You can use this rule for cash savings too, but as interest rates fall, it could take longer to achieve your goals.

This rule was originally introduced by mathematician Luca Pacioli in the 1400s, but is still popular today to help work out the concept of building wealth.

Of course, investing has downs as well as ups, and this is why it is important your investing strategy should include investing a consistent amount each month, and keep going even if there is market turmoil – like what we have seen recently as Donald Trump’s tariffs came into play. See the latest on the recent market turmoil in our live blog.

2. 50/30/20 budgeting rule

If you’re worried about running out of money each month, give this rule a try. Known as the 50/30/20 budgeting rule, it splits your monthly income into various pots for spending and saving.

Here's how it works.

• 50% of your income goes into essential spending – like bills, travel costs to work, groceries and so on.
• 20% goes towards savings and investments – or to clear debt.
• 30% goes towards ‘wants’ – this is money you allocate to spending on things like take-aways, clothes, going out and so on.

You can mix the rule up, so maybe if you’re looking to save more, you may decide to put 30% of your monthly income into savings or investments – or more. You decide.

The 50/30/20 was originally introduced by professor and US senator, Elizabeth Warren.

3. The 4% pension rule – retire comfortably

No one wants to run out of money when they retire, and the 4% pension rule can help ensure you don’t.

The idea is you withdraw only 4% of your pension in the first year of retirement and then increase withdrawals each year at the same rate as inflation. The idea is to make your pension pot last longer, for at least 30 years.

By keeping a significant sum still invested, your money can keep growing as you are withdrawing just enough to live on.

This idea originated from a US financial planner, Willian Bengen, in the 1990s.

But, like any rule, make sure it is right for you. Your circumstances may mean you withdraw more, or less. Morningstar's analysis suggests 3% is adequate. But you may decide to withdraw more to cover unexpected costs or because you are facing ill health, for example.

Using historical data, research from Fidelity shows that if you had a £100,000 pension pot in 2015, withdrew 4% and then only withdrew at the rate of inflation, you would still have £189,000 remaining after 10 years – nearly double the starting amount.

You can read more about the 4% pension rule in our article: The 4% pension rule to retire comfortably.

4. How much should I save into a pension? The half your age rule

If you’re not retiring yet, then you may be asking ‘how much should I save into a pension’. There’s a rule for that too.

The simple principle here is to contribute half your age into a pension to achieve a comfortable retirement pot. So, if you’re 40, look to stash 20% of your salary into a pension each month,

This sounds hefty, but this should include your employer’s contribution and any tax incentives.

The younger you start on pensions, the easier it is to achieve your pension goals.

See how your pension savings compare to your peers in our “average pension pot by age” guide.

The global ultra high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI) population has increased, according to Knight Frank’s latest Wealth Report, but they aren’t immune from market volatility.

The estate agency and consultancy brand’s research shows the number of UHNWIs - those worth more than $30million, has increased from 551,435 to 713,626 between 2021 and 2026

India’s wealth base is expanding rapidly, recording 63% UHNWI growth, with a further 27% expansion forecast by 2031.

In contrast, the number of UK UHNWIs is up just 11% between 2021 and 2026 – with the low levels blamed on rising taxes – while the US has recorded a 36.3% boost to 251,352.

The global billionaire population reached 3,110 in 2026, Knight Frank said, with Asia-Pacific home to the largest share.

The UHNWI cohort can afford to back more luxurious investments such as collectibles including art, cars and whisky. But the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index (KFLII) – which tracks the value of luxury investments – closed 2025 down 0.4%.

While values remained under pressure, the pace of annual decline slowed from a 5.3% decline the first quarter to a 0.4% drop by the final three months of the year.

The longer-term picture is more positive, with the KFLII up 38.6% over the past decade.

It comes as HNWIs are becoming more selective and discerning about luxury investments, rather than focusing on the traditional classic cars and fine wine.

Where are the wealthy investing?

The luxury investment that saw the biggest rise in value last year was impressionist art, up 13.6%.

Knight Frank said this was driven by major single-owner sales and standout results including Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, which sold for $236.4 million – the highest-ever price for a modern artwork sold at auction.

Post war and modern art values are also up 5.1% and 7.1% respectively.

Meanwhile, luxury watch values rose 5.1%, led by strong demand for Patek Philippe’s Aquanaut and Nautilus models and continued resilience from Rolex.

Not all luxuries had a good year though.

Classic car values fell 3.7% blamed on “tariff uncertainty,” Knight Frank said, while whisky fell 10.9%.

Interest in fractional ownership is also growing, the report reveals, as younger wealthy people seek partial ownership of luxury products.

For example, in 2025, a rare 66 million-year-old Edmontosaurus skull delivered a 22.4% return in just eight and a half months’ holding time on online trading platform Timeless Investments. The Berlin-based start-up sells fractions from as little as US$60 each in collectibles ranging from cars to wine to trainers.

Liam Bailey, global head of research at Knight Frank, said: “After a cycle defined by extraordinary highs followed by rapid readjustment, the luxury investment market is now entering a more rational and more discerning phase.

“Collectors are increasingly prioritising rarity, provenance and cultural resonance – and younger generations are reshaping ownership models through digital and fractional platforms.”

Luxury property is also performing well, in contrast to slower house price growth in the mainstream residential property markets.

Global luxury house prices rose 3.2% last year, the report said, led by Tokyo (+58.5%) and Dubai (+25.1%). This was helped by the global scarcity of ready-made homes, which is driving premiums.

The Middle East was the best-performing region, with prices up 9.4%, while values in Europe rose 3.3%.

Luxury property in North America saw a 0.9%, driven by price falls in Canada. Meanwhile, London luxury property prices are down 4.7%.

Future hotspots include Mumbai, Brisbane, Miami and Hong Kong, the report said.

Bailey added: “In many markets, prime residential property has pulled away from the broader housing sector, underpinned by the strength of wealth creation. While mainstream markets remain exposed to wider economic pressures, the pace at which wealth is being generated is helping to keep demand for luxury property more resilient, even against recent volatility in debt costs.

“UHNWIs are increasingly organising their lives across multiple jurisdictions, with family offices actively managing tax, lifestyle and political risk. As a result, established hubs such as London are shifting towards a ‘dip-in, dip-out’ model: places to spend time for business, culture and connectivity rather than permanent residence.”

Investments for the wealthy

Here are some of the best investments that are worth wealthier individuals considering:

Venture Capital Trusts

Venture capital trusts (VCTs) are a form of investment trust and a popular investment among wealthier individuals, largely because they tap into otherwise inaccessible assets and carry significant tax benefits.

Specifically, they offer 20% income tax relief on purchases of new VCT shares, as long as these are held for five years, on up to £200,000 every year. Investing the maximum amount would allow you to deduce £60,000 from your income tax calculation.

VCT shares also qualify for tax-free dividends, and any sold at a profit won’t incur capital gains tax (CGT).

They can typically only invest in companies worth less than £15 million, so these are generally a risky investment that is best approached with a long term perspective in mind.

EIS

Besides VCTs, another government scheme to encourage investment into smaller businesses is the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS).

The EIS is similar to VCTs in that investments are CGT-exempt and dividends do not incur tax. Shares purchased through the EIS also incur 30% income tax relief, though they only have to be held for three years rather than five for this to apply.

Shares bought through an EIS are held by you directly, though, rather than via an investment trust. As such, they aren’t as liquid; you’ll only be able to sell shares when any given company reaches a liquidity event, such as a sale or an IPO.

EIS portfolios are typically fairly small, around 10 companies, and managed on your behalf by a specialist.

Gold bullion

Physical gold in the form of bullion is one of the oldest means of storing and, indeed, expressing wealth in history. Buying gold bullion through a broker or a registered custodian is one way of crystallising wealth into physical form.

Gold prices typically rise during periods of uncertainty. However, bear in mind that gold prices can be volatile; while gold has been on a strong run of late, it frequently changes course, and the fact that it pays no income means you could be left with little to show for your investment besides a shiny gold bar.

Though hearing the term ‘net worth’ might drum up images of billionaires like Elon Musk or wealthy singers like Taylor Swift, everyone in the world has a net worth — not just the ultra rich.

The median net worth of an individual in the UK is £125,000 when taking the average of all age groups into account, according to the latest available data from the Office for National Statistics (collected between 2018 and 2020 and published in September 2023).

If you calculate the mean average instead, this figure soars to £305,000, as this is skewed by the significant wealth inequality that exists in the UK.

The wealthiest 10% of individuals in the UK were estimated to hold almost half of the wealth captured in the ONS’ Wealth and Assets Survey, which examined data from 2020 to 2022. Meanwhile, the poorest 10% of the population hold only 0.02% of total wealth in the UK.

Average net worth by age

When looking at net worth, it is useful to not just look at the total average, but instead examine the data divided by age groups.

The net worth of an individual tends to grow as they get older because, over time, people typically accumulate more assets and realise higher gains on their investments.

Furthermore, your net worth also includes your savings, which also increase by age. MoneyWeek has produced a helpful guide to how much you should have in your savings for those who want to know the amount of savings they should strive for at different ages.

The size of your pension pot is also taken into account when looking at net worth, and those who are older will, by and large, have more in their pension savings as they near retirement. MoneyWeek has also revealed the average pension pot by age.

Below is a table showing the average wealth of an individual in the UK by age group and different types of wealth. Note the data is from 2016-2020.

Source: Office for National Statistics, Wealth and Assets Survey 2016 - 2020

Average household net worth by region

There is a large disparity in the average net worth of households across the different regions of Britain according to the ONS’ Wealth and Assets survey.

While median household wealth in the country as a whole was £293,700, according to data collected between 2020 and 2022, there is a large variance between regions.

The largest of these disparities can be seen between the average household net worth of those in the South East (£489,800) and those in the North East (£179,900).

Below is a table showing the median household wealth of different regions in the UK:

Source: ONS Wealth and Assets Survey 2020 - 2022

The country-wide median household wealth is shown below:

Source: ONS Wealth and Assets Survey 2020 - 2022

How is net worth calculated?

Net worth is calculated by subtracting your liabilities from your assets.

Assets include economic resources that you own that have a cash value. This can include property wealth, financial assets, pension pots, and physical assets such as cars, artworks, or antiques.

Liabilities include any money that you owe to another person, company, or institution. These can be loans, mortgages, taxes, or your credit card balance.

Imagine you have savings of £10,000, a pension pot of £100,000, and a home worth £500,000, but you still owe £250,000 on the mortgage.

Your net worth would then be £360,000 as your total liabilities (£250,000) are subtracted from your total assets (£610,000).

Average net worth in America: how does the UK compare?

According to MoneyWeek’s sister site Kiplinger, the average net worth across the pond is $1,063,700 (currently equivalent to £843,730) when taking into account all ages, according to data from the Federal Reserve published in 2022.

This figure is, like in the UK, heavily skewed by the extreme wealth held by top earners in the country.

For a more representative understanding of the average net worth in America, it is best to use the median net worth, which stands at $192,900 (£152,961) when averaging across all ages.

This is higher than the UK’s median of £125,000, but the cost of living in America tends to be higher than in Britain. Furthermore, the latest available data in the US was from 2022, rather than 2016-2020 in the UK.

Like in the UK, there is also a large disparity between average net worth when looking at different age groups in America.

In the US, the median net worth of those under 35 is $39,000, while it swells to $335,600 for those 75 or older - this is, in part, due to pension pots and assets growing over time. Below is a table showing the average and median net worths in the US according to age groups:

Source: Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances (2022)

You might be wondering what Selena Gomez’s net worth is, as she is the latest celebrity to become a billionaire, according to Bloomberg’s billionaire index.

While Selena Gomez is not the richest person in the world, nor is she the richest woman in the world, her career in acting, beauty, fashion and singing has led her to billionaire status. According to Bloomberg, Selena Gomez is worth an estimated $1.3 billion.

Unlike Taylor Swift who made her billions solely from her music career, Gomez has followed in the footsteps of artists like Rihanna, who diversified her income through her beauty brand, Fenty.

But where did it all start for Gomez? How did she rise to fame and accumulate billions?

Selena Gomez and acting

Selena Gomez, now 32, has Disney to thank for her rise to stardom. She began her acting career on Disney’s children's show, Barney & Friends at a mere 9 years old. She was paid $3,000 per episode according to IMDb. Around five years later, Gomez became the lead in Disney Channel’s hit show, Wizards of Waverly Place. According to IMDb, Gomez was paid $30,000 per episode, earning her more than $3 million and making her one of nine highest-paid child TV stars, Business Insider reports.

Wizards of Waverly Place really got Gomez noticed. The actress also made appearances on other Disney hit shows, such as Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Gomez also starred as the lead in the Disney movie, Princess Protection Programme in 2009. She continued to thrive in her acting career, playing the lead in other ‘chick flick’ movies including Spring Breakers. Her role in Monte Carlo earned Gomez $2,500,000.

Fast forward to 2021, Gomez had a major breakthrough in her acting career – she produced and starred in Hulu’s hit show Only Murders in the Building. According to Variety, Gomez’s co-stars earn $600,000 per episode, which suggests she earns a similar amount. The actress was also nominated for her first Emmy award for her role in the Hulu series.

While Gomez is getting plaudits as an actress, this is only a fraction of her wealth.

Selena Gomez and her music career

Gomez also released music in her Disney days. Her first album, Stars Dance made its debut in July 2013. According to Parade, she made over $6 million from the Stars Dance tour. Since then, she released two more solo albums – Revival and Rare. On her Revival tour, she earned more than $13 million, despite cancelling the remainder of her tour after her 55th show due to mental health struggles.

Billboard reveals the singer has sold 24.3 million singles and 3.4 million albums just in the US. And not forgetting Calm Down by Rema, which Gomez featured on in 2022. Forbes says it was the first Afrobeats song to reach more than one billion views in the US, which benefited Gomez as the number of streams increased her pay packet. Still, Gomez hasn’t put her music career to bed. Fans can expect new music from the singer soon, as she’s recently hinted that she’s working on a new album.

Selena Gomez and Rare Beauty  

Gomez’s beauty brand, Rare Beauty, has been the biggest catalyst for propelling Gomez’s net worth, contributing to 81.4% of the star’s wealth, Bloomberg reports. Rare Beauty launched in September 2020, during the Covid pandemic. The brand, which sells make-up and skincare products, has become a hit among social media influencers on Instagram and TikTok. In 2022, the Rare Beauty Liquid Blush sold 3.1 million units, priced at $23 each – generating around $70 million in revenue, according to Bloomberg. As a result, the brand was on track to triple its sales in 2023.

Gomez’s commitment to young people is also clear in her business – 1% of every sale goes to her Rare Impact Fund, which aims to improve access to mental health services. According to the Rare Beauty 2023 social impact report, the charity raised more than $7 million and reached over one million people.

So, how did the brand become a huge success in such a crowded market? Well, even before the brand was born, it was a given that her fiercely loyal fans would support any of her ventures. To put it into perspective, the Rare Beauty Instagram account has 7.7 million followers and its TikTok account has a following of 4.1 million. And social media continues to work wonders for the star…

Brand partnerships 

Even though most of Gomez’s wealth comes from her beauty brand, all of her career moves have pushed her up to billionaire status – even her Instagram following. According to Forbes India, Gomez is the most followed female on Instagram, with 424 million in 2024 – just below Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. That’s more followers than Kim Kardashian and Beyoncé. And Gomez’s high Instagram following has been a recipe for success for brands who pay her to endorse them.

Global fashion names have leveraged Gomez’s social media popularity, including Coach. In 2016, Gomez was named the new face of the brand, landing her a $10 million deal, Billboard reports. In the same year, she partnered with Louis Vuitton in another $10 million deal and became the face of the sportswear brand, Puma in a two-year contract that earned her a reported $30 million.

According to Bloomberg, Gomez’s brand endorsements account for 6.9% of her wealth – the second largest driver to her becoming a billionaire.

Read more:

• What is Robbie Williams’ net worth?
• What is Ed Sheeran's net worth?
• What is David Beckham's net worth?

Oasis stars Liam and Noel Gallagher – or the Gallagher brothers – took their own advice about the perils of looking back in anger, and came to the conclusion that music (or perhaps the money) was more important than their 15-year feud. The Oasis Live ‘25 Tour became one of the most-attended and highest-grossing tours of 2025.

The Oasis reunion tour has surely added several zeroes to the brothers’ fortunes, even if they are nowhere near matching the wealth of fellow British musicians Robbie Williams and Ed Sheeran.

With that in mind, how much money did the Britpop pioneers make from the tour, and what does it mean for their net worth?

What does the Oasis reunion mean for Noel and Liam Gallagher’s net worth?

The Oasis Live ‘25 Tour is estimated to have made $405,428,435, with over two million tickets sold, according to trade publication Pollstar.

Tickets were priced between £73 and £205. In comparison, a ticket to the Oasis tour in 1995 cost just £14, The Times reports, which, when accounting for inflation, is equivalent to £29.05 in January 2026.

With 41 concerts in 14 countries, each show made just shy of £10 million, second only to Taylor Swift’s billion-dollar Eras Tour. Swift’s tour was on a much higher level, with 149 dates spanning 51 cities and five continents.

Further analysis by The Times suggests Noel and Liam Gallagher will have made at least £50 million each from the tour, but the actual figure is estimated to be much higher due to merchandise and streaming sales.

Data from the University of Salford shows that fans spent £166 million on travel and accommodation in cities like Manchester, Cardiff and London, while the total economic contribution of the reunion tour was roughly £940 million. In London alone, the tour is estimated to have added more than £426 million to Britain’s economy.

Online reports of their net worth are difficult to verify, but the Sunday Times Rich List calculated the brothers’ combined wealth as £52 million back in 2009, when the band first split. By 2018, it was estimated to have climbed to £60 million.

That said, Noel is widely recognised as the wealthier of the two brothers – and by a significant margin. As the primary songwriter and producer on the band’s music, he earns the lion’s share when it comes to royalties.

Expensive divorce settlements have also taken a chunk out of their wealth in recent years. When Liam divorced his second wife, Nicole Appleton, in 2015, court documents showed the £5.5 million payout she received represented half of his wealth at the time.

Noel also announced a split from his second wife, Sara MacDonald, in 2023, and is understood to have paid a £20 million divorce settlement. It is unclear how much of Noel’s wealth this represented.

What about money from merchandise and streaming?

As well as ticket sales, revenue from Oasis merchandise and an uptick in streaming will boost the brothers’ net worth.

Returning from their 16-year hiatus meant that there was increased demand for the brothers’ collectable merchandise, with original Oasis T-shirts, hoodies and physical media selling for around £500 on eBay.

A report in The Sun claims the Gallaghers landed a £20 million payday after their merchandise partner – part of Warner Music Group – secured the rights to the black and white image used when the comeback tour was first announced in August 2024.

The band has reportedly filed documents at the Intellectual Property Office to prevent unauthorised reuse by bootleg merchandisers.

An increase in streaming activity could also mean more income from royalties. The artists have garnered over ten billion all-time streams on Spotify, with fans streaming Wonderwall around 2.7 billion times (that’s 1.2 million streams daily), and Don’t Look Back in Anger 1.3 billion times. Spotify pays between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream, so that’s at least $45 million in their pockets.

There’s also money in merchandise. The tour merch included £20 tote bags, £85 hoodies and bucket hats for £40. All-in-all, fans spent £188 million buying these goodies, according to the University of Salford.

Donald Trump’s net worth has skyrocketed since he was elected president for the second time during the 2024 US elections.

According to TheStreet, Trump is the richest US president of all time (after previous presidents’ wealth is adjusted for inflation), and the only billionaire to live in the White House.

So, how rich is he? Forbes estimates that Donald Trump’s net worth currently stands at around $7.3 billion.

Though still far from matching the wealth of billionaire Elon Musk, the US president’s fortune cements his status among the richest people in the world.

We take a deeper dive into what Trump owns and how much it's worth.

What makes up the majority of Donald Trump's net worth?

By far, the lion's share of Trump's net worth comes from cryptocurrency and liquid assets, according to Forbes. Trump is flush with cash thanks to his cryptocurrency sales, which have added around $2 billion to his wealth in the past ten months.

Second to stablecoins and memecoins, Trump’s social-media venture has made him billions. Trump Media & Technology Group Corp (NASDAQ: DJT), the parent company of his social network, Truth Social, generated sales of just $3.6 million last year, but due to noise around Trump on a daily basis, shares in his company remain highly priced, leaving him with billions. The media company went public via a merger with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Digital World Acquisition Company in March 2024.

Trump's booming real estate empire

A chunk of Trump's net worth also comes from real estate. Forbes estimates this to be worth $1.2 billion.

This includes his 30% stake in 1290 Avenue of the Americas in New York and 555 California Street in San Francisco, both valued at $1.4 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively.

Among Trump's other properties are Trump Tower ($215 million) in New York, 17 condos in Trump Park Avenue in New York ($94 million), Trump Winery ($44 million) in Virginia, and four homes in Florida, which are worth around $92 million.

He also owns an 11,000-square-foot Trump Tower penthouse in New York, several residential lots in California worth $50 million, and Seven Springs — a $30 million private estate in Bedford, New York.

Trump’s golf clubs and resorts are valued at $1.3 billion. The operating profits at his ten golf courses in six different states boomed from $19 million in 2020 to $66 million in 2024. He also owns three European golf properties – one in Ireland, two in Scotland – both valued at $118 million. The Trump Organization declared losses of over $100 million at these resorts, but business seems to have picked up in recent months, according to Forbes.

He owns several resorts, including the private club Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach worth $490 million, and the Trump National Doral Miami, worth $390 million.

According to Time, Trump also received £3 million in income from Bibles sold on musician Lee Greenwood’s website. Greenwood is a close ally of Trump. The president also brought in $2.8 million from Trump watches and $2.5 million from Trump sneakers and fragrances.

Other assets held by Trump include $11 million for a helicopter and aeroplane, $5 million in loans made to his children, and a licensing and management business worth $501 million. Trump’s pensions are worth $2 million.

How much have Trump's legal problems cost?

What lies in the debit column, detracting from Trump's net worth? Forbes estimated his legal liabilities at $95 million. This comes after a New York appeals court threw out a $500 million civil fraud penalty case against Trump, bringing down how much he needed to shell out. The judges stated that while Trump was liable for fraud, paying nearly half a billion dollars was excessive and couldn’t be justified.

How Donald Trump's net worth has fluctuated over time

Forbes estimated Donald Trump's net worth to be around $200 million back in 1982, rising to $1.7 billion by 1989. However, his net worth plunged in the 1990s, and he fell off the Forbes 400 list for the first half of the decade.

In 1996, he was worth about $450 million. From there, Trump's net worth gradually rose over time, and by 2007 it was $3 billion before tumbling again in 2009, at the end of the Great Recession (December 2007 to June 2009).

In 2009, Trump began building his billions again, reaching $4.5 billion in 2015. Trump's net worth began to decline again in 2016, falling to $3.7 billion before bottoming out during the pandemic at $2.5 billion in 2020 and 2021, likely in part because of closures that shuttered his clubs and resorts.

In 2022, Trump's net worth was $3.2 billion but dropped again, to $2.6 billion, in 2023. In early 2024, he grew his wealth to over $6 billion after Trump Media went public, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

In 2025, a report by State Democracy Defenders Action estimated that his crypto holdings, namely $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins and a stake in World Liberty Financial (a Decentralised finance, or DeFi, tied to his family) were nearly 40% of his net worth – approximately $2.9 billion.

After Trump returned to office, his net worth jumped to $7.3 billion, up from $3.9 billion in 2024.

Steven Bartlett is best known for his podcast The Diary of a CEO and for being the youngest member on the Dragon’s Den panel.

Although the 32-year-old doesn’t come near the richest person in the world, his accumulated wealth is impressive — especially since he reached millionaire status in his mid-twenties.

According to Forbes, his net worth is £29 million, ranking him on their 2025 list of Top Creators.

Find out how Bartlett uses his business acumen and personality as his recipe for success.

Who is Steven Bartlett? 

Much of Steven Bartlett’s success is down to his branding – fitting for someone who started out in the marketing world. The entrepreneur made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2020 and has been a speaker on Ted Talks and at the United Nations.

Bartlett was born in Botswana in 1992 and moved to Plymouth, England, at the age of two. In 2010, he went to Manchester Metropolitan University but dropped out in the first year, as he decided to work on his business idea. His first venture, launched in 2013, was an online messaging board for students called Wallpark. It allowed them to share events and sell textbooks on the site.

A year later, Bartlett co-founded the marketing agency Social Chain with Dominic McGregor at the age of 22. The agency pulled in global brands, from Apple and KFC to McDonald's.

By the age of 23, Bartlett reached millionaire status. In 2019, Social Chain was publicly listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, after merging with German online retailer Lumaland AG. That company, ‘The Social Chain AG’ listed with a market valuation of more than $200 million, according to Forbes. In 2020, Bartlett, aged 27, stepped down as co-CEO of Social Chain AG.

In 2023, media group Brave Bison acquired The Social Chain AG in a £7.7 million deal, although it’s not certain if Bartlett made anything from this buyout.

Bartlett has said the decision to move away from Social Chain was to make room for other ventures – one of which being his successful podcast, The Diary of a CEO.

How Steven Bartlett started The Diary of a CEO

While heading up Social Chain, Bartlett aired the first episode of The Diary of a CEO. He said it was just a “one-off experiment”, but now, the podcast is renowned for its high-profile guests, ranging from Michelle Obama and Jimmy Fallon to Boris Johnson and Gary Neville. The podcast has more than 10 million YouTube subscribers and his social media following is around 25 million.

The Diary of a CEO ranks among the top podcasts on Spotify’s UK podcast charts. In November 2024, it reached one billion listens and streams across Apple, Spotify and YouTube. It was the first UK-produced show to hit the milestone. Last year, Forbes revealed that the franchise earned $20 million in revenue thanks to brand deals with LinkedIn, Oracle, Shopify, and other events and merchandise.

Bartlett leveraged the brand and released a book in 2023, called The Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws of Business and Life. The book went on to become a No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller. According to the BBC, the entrepreneur also partnered with the Prison Service so that his book could be given to inmates to educate and inspire them. Prior to this, in 2021, the entrepreneur released his first book called Happy Sexy Millionaire, which was also a Sunday Times bestseller.

The podcast has had its fair share of controversy, however. An investigation by the BBC World Service found that Bartlett’s podcast was amplifying health misinformation, which could put cancer patients at risk. The analysis of 15 health-related podcast episodes discovered that each contained around 14 harmful claims that were not scientifically approved, such as guests promoting a keto diet as a form of cancer treatment.

A spokesperson for Flight Studio, Bartlett’s production company, told MoneyWeek: “The Diary Of A CEO (DOAC), is an open-minded, long-form conversation with world leaders, global experts, CEOs, athletes, authors, actors, and other individuals identified for their distinguished and eminent career and/or consequential life experience.

“Each guest episode is thoroughly researched prior to commission. DOAC offers guests freedom of expression and believes that progress, growth and learning comes from hearing a range of voices, not just those Steven and the DOAC team necessarily agree with.

“The BBC claims to have reviewed 15 specific episodes of nearly 400 published to date. For any reporting of DOAC to focus on less than 4% of episodes with an extremely limited proportion of guests – some of whom have featured on the BBC – to create a broader, and in our opinion, partial narrative is disappointing, misleading and frankly, disingenuous.”

What does Steven Bartlett invest in?

After stepping down from Social Chain, Bartlett moved into the world of investments in 2021.

He co-founded and launched a software platform called Thirdweb with Furqan Rydhan, which aids entrepreneurs in building and managing web3 apps. The platform is backed by Coinbase and Shopify. According to Private Equity Wire, Thirdweb was valued at $160 million in 2022, and within nine months, 55,000 users took advantage of the platform’s tools. As a result, Thirdweb was generating revenue of more than $1.5 million each week. But the fund has come under criticism by one crowdfunding forum, The Times reported, stating that it hasn’t been transparent with investors.

In the same year, Bartlett launched and co-founded a marketing investment company called Flight Group. It backs and invests in innovative companies. Within Flight Group sit three separate entities – Flight Fund (that invests in biotech, blockchain, technology, health and wellbeing, commerce and space), Flight Story (a marketing company) and Flight Studio, created to follow on from the success of Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO, and will create more podcasts.

Steven Bartlett on Dragons’ Den

Bartlett became the youngest-ever “dragon” to join the BBC’s Dragons’ Den panel in 2021. He was just 28 when he sat alongside Peter Jones, Sara Davies and Deborah Meaden. According to the BBC, Bartlett has pledged nearly £2 million to invest ‘in the Den’.

Even if you don’t know anything about Formula 1, you’ll have heard of Lewis Hamilton. His fame transcends the world of motorsports, putting him in the same league as celebrity sporting icons like Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo and Rory McIlroy.

Lewis Hamilton is one of the most successful drivers in Formula One, with seven World Drivers’ Championship titles under his belt. It’s a record that he shares with the legendary Michael Schumacher.

In 2024, Hamilton made headlines by extending his record for the most F1 wins at a single track, claiming a ninth British Grand Prix title, which also happened to be his home race. He holds the title for most career wins (105) and second-highest race starts (over 380).

According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2026, Lewis Hamilton’s net worth is £435 million, putting him among some of the richest people in the world.

Hamilton is currently dating American media personality and businesswoman Kim Kardashian. She made her first Grand Prix paddock appearance at the Monaco Grand Prix in June 2026.

How Lewis Hamilton’s net worth grew in Formula 1

Lewis Hamilton’s journey as a racing driver started in 1993 at the age of eight when his dad started taking him to karting events. Then, as a 10-year-old trophy-winner, Hamilton approached Ron Dennis, McLaren’s founder and (then) team principal, and told him that he wanted to race for his team when he was older. In 1998, Hamilton signed to the McLaren driver development program and, in 2007, he entered the world of Formula One as a driver for the team.

After enjoying one of the best debut seasons by any driver ever, Hamilton signed a five-year contract with McLaren worth £35.8 million. He won his first F1 World Championship in 2008, becoming the youngest winner in history and the first British champion since Damon Hill in 1996.

In 2013, Hamilton made a shock decision to quit McLaren and signed a three-year contract with Mercedes-AMG Petronas for nearly $83 million, with a salary of $27.6 million per year. While many initially questioned this move, it ended up working in Hamilton’s favour. He went on to dominate the 2014 F1 season and ultimately won the championship.

After winning his second title, Hamilton renewed his Mercedes contract; signing for three years with a £100 million+ deal, and in addition, he kept his image rights.

He won five more titles between 2015 and 2020, equalling Michael Schumacher’s previously unbeaten record of seven F1 World Driver Championship titles. In 2021, Hamilton extended his Mercedes deal, which earned him $57 million in the following year, according to Forbes. Hamilton overtook David Beckham to become Britain’s richest sportsperson in 2022.

The 2022 season saw a major regulation change, and Hamilton failed to win a race from 2021 up until the 2024 British Grand Prix at Silverstone. This marked another high point in his partnership with Mercedes by winning his final home race with the team.

In 2024, in an unprecedented move that sent shockwaves through the racing world, Hamilton announced that he would be parting ways with Mercedes and joining Ferrari on a multi-year contract. This announcement saw Ferrari’s stock price soar by more than 10%, while its market capitalisation nearly hit $7 billion, Autosport reported.

According to Sportico, Hamilton became the first F1 driver to rake in $100 million in a single year from salary and brand endorsements in 2025. It has now pushed his career earnings to around $880 million since joining F1 in 2007.

Lewis Hamilton as a cultural icon 

Hamilton was awarded a knighthood by King Charles III — then the Prince of Wales — at Windsor Castle in December 2021. It made him the fourth F1 driver in history to be knighted. In June 2022, he was made an honorary citizen of Brazil after winning the Brazilian Grand Prix for the third time in 2021.

As one of the world’s most marketable athletes, the F1 superstar has secured profitable endorsement deals with Tommy Hilfiger, Puma, Monster Energy and Lululemon.

He has also made a mark in the fashion world, having launched a clothing line with Tommy Hilfiger, two capsule collections with Dior, and even co-chairing the 2025 Met Gala.

In October 2022, Hamilton founded his own production company, Dawn Apollo Films, which produced F1, starring Brad Pitt. The film had a budget of approximately $300 million and went on to be nominated for four Academy Awards. It won the Oscar for Best Sound.

Hamilton has made several high-profile investments, such as jointly purchasing fashion magazine W, becoming an ambassador for the luxury watch company IWC and part-owning NFL team Denver Broncos. As an angel investor, he founded Almave, a non-alcoholic agave brand.

As well as getting to drive some of the fastest cars for his day job, Hamilton boasts an impressive private collection of luxury cars. According to Parade, his collection includes a $20 million 1995 McLaren F1, a $4.1 million Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta, and a $1.4 million 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500.

Hamilton has also heavily contributed to social activism. As the only black driver in Formula One, Hamilton has been vocal about pushing for more diversity in the industry.

He founded Mission 44 (named after his racing number) – a youth charity pushing for more inclusivity in the racing world. This initiative is supported by F1 through apprenticeships and professional development schemes to facilitate careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and motorsport.

Anant Ambani is the son of Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani, an Indian businessman and magnate who is the wealthiest man in Asia.

While Anant Ambani’s net worth may not be as extensive as his father’s, his wedding to Radhika Merchant in 2024 came to be known as India’s “wedding of the year” due to its opulence and star presence.

The pre-wedding festivities gained global attention, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates rubbing shoulders while Rihanna performed her biggest hits. A local airport in the state of Gujarat was granted temporary international status to accommodate the guests. On top of that, the events included a $900 million cruise sailing between Palermo and Portofino in Italy.

The couple tied the knot in July 2024, and the wedding’s star-studded guest list included some of the richest people in the world, such as Kim Kardashian, David Beckham, as well as former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson.

The events gave the world a sneak peek into the magnificent lifestyle of the Ambani family. We look at how Anant Ambani built his fortune, his father’s investments and the factors contributing to their net worths.

How rich is Anant Ambani?

Anant Ambani’s net worth is roughly £29 billion (INR 3.59 lakh crore), according to a report by 360 ONE Wealth and Crisil.

He is the youngest son of the Reliance Industries chairman, Mukesh Ambani and businesswoman Nita Ambani.

Most of Anant’s fortune comes from inheriting Mukesh’s dizzying wealth and his booming Indian empire. It makes Anant, 30, one of the most prominent businessmen of his generation and one of the wealthiest young people in the world.

According to Reliance’s Q3 FY2026 results, the company has made $32.7 billion in gross revenue and $3.8 billion in capital expenditure, which is just a teaser to the family fortune.

Anant Ambani went to college in the US and earned his degree from Brown University, majoring in business management.

Since 2020, he has been making a fortune with his roles in the Reliance empire, spearheading its green energy operations and other corporate roles like human resource management and capital projects execution.

He is also the director of the multinational tech company Jio Platforms Limited. According to Reuters, the company is believed to be considering an initial public offering (IPO) in 2026, which would float 2.5% of the company and could make it India’s largest-ever IPO worth more than $4 billion.

Other factors contributing to Anant Ambani’s net worth include owning the Indian Premier League team Mumbai Indians, one of the most successful cricket teams in the league. Reliance purchased the team in 2008 for a staggering $111.9 million, making it the most expensive team to be sold.

More recently, the BBC reported that luxury watchmaker Jacob & C designed a new watch based on Anant Ambani’s private zoo, Vantara, which is home to over 2,000 species and is spread over 3,500 acres. Vantara was one of the many venues for his lavish wedding to Radhika Merchant.

Radhika is a businesswoman and the daughter of tycoon Viren Merchant, CEO of private pharmaceutical company Encore Healthcare, and Shaila Merchant. Radhika is a board member of the company.

Her family’s estimated net worth is $90 million, according to the Times of India. The most recent filing showed that the company generated a revenue of around £10 million (INR 128 crore) for FY24/25.

What is Mukesh Ambani’s net worth?

Mukesh Ambani is an Indian billionaire and the face of Reliance Industries, which he is the chairman and managing director of. His net worth stands at $104 billion, according to Forbes.

His father, Dhirubhai Ambani, founded the company in 1958, when it was originally set up as a small venture firm trading commodities like spices and polyester yarn.

Now, the conglomerate’s operations include energy, clothing and retail, and telecommunications, making it India’s largest public company by market capitalisation. The company’s website claims it owns the largest oil refining complex in the world.

Reliance’s telecom and broadband service Jio has more than 500 million subscribers, making it India’s largest mobile network operator and the third largest in the world.

The majority of Mukesh Ambani’s wealth comes from his stake in Reliance Industries. He is already the wealthiest man in India by a large margin, but his extensive fortune also makes him Asia’s richest person.

Ambani owns an $80 million beach villa in Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah Island, and snapped up a majority stake worth $98 million in Mandarin Oriental New York, one of the biggest luxury hotels in the world.

Mukesh Ambani also owns more than 150 luxury cars and three private jets, of which the most expensive is a Boeing Business Jet 2, worth $73 million. He owns an Airbus A319, which was a gift to his wife, and a Falcon 900EX Jet, according to GQ India.

Inside the Ambani family’s expansive fortune  

Each member of the Ambani family holds a stake in Reliance.

Mukesh and Nita Ambani, along with Anant Ambani and his two older siblings, Akash and Isha Ambani, both 34, own 0.12% each. Kokilaben Ambani, the mother of Mukesh and his siblings, owns the highest stake of 0.24%, equivalent to 31.48 million shares.

The family’s wealth does not end there. The Ambanis live at Antilia, the second most expensive private residence in the world after Buckingham Palace. It is a 27-storey tower that cost around £1.6 billion to build, which has famously been called the world’s first billion-dollar home. The property is 400,000-square-foot with three helipads, and has some unique features, like a 168-car garage, an ice-cream parlour and a snow room, according to Architectural Digest India.

The Ambanis also own teams in other cricket leagues around the world, including MI Cape Town, MI Emirates, and MI New York.

The Ambani family’s wedding celebrations are known to create a lot of press, as they have brought together some of the world’s biggest pop icons and global personalities.

In 2018, Isha Ambani married billionaire Ajay Piramal’s son Anand. Beyoncé performed at their pre-wedding bash in Udaipur, India. Chris Martin of Coldplay and The Chainsmokers performed at Akash Ambani and Shloka Mehta’s pre-wedding party in Switzerland in 2019.

The family’s wealth and influence extend far beyond mere financial success. Mukesh Ambani’s wife, Nita Ambani, is more focused on the non-profit side of the business. She launched the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai in 2023, and is the chairperson and founder of Reliance Foundation, one of India’s largest non-profits.

What UK business do the Ambanis own?

The family business includes various big-name ventures that you may be familiar with. In 2019, Reliance bought London toy retailer Hamleys for nearly £70 million, according to the Guardian. Hamleys is the world’s oldest toy shop, and with more than 160 stores in 18 countries, a majority of which are in India.

In 2021, the Ambanis bought the historic British private sporting estate, Stoke Park, for £57 million. Today, the property spans 49 rooms with 13 tennis courts and a 27-hole golf course. It was also the backdrop for two Bond films, Goldfinger and Tomorrow Never Dies, and the Netflix series The Crown.

Meanwhile, Reliance’s retail subsidiary is now an exclusive partner with fashion e-tailer ASOS, successfully bringing the e-tailer to India.

Reliance also attempted to acquire one of Britain’s largest pharmacy retailers, Boots, submitting a bid of around $7.2 billion. However, it was unsuccessful as Walgreens, which owns a majority stake in Boots, withdrew its sale offer, stating that none of the bids received adequately reflected the high potential value of the company.

In February 2025, Mukesh Ambani reintroduced Shein to Indian markets through his retail platform Ajio, after the fast fashion brand’s four-and-a-half-year absence in the country.

Tyson Fury has announced his retirement from boxing again. He previously retired from the sport in 2022 but returned six months later.

Fury has made a name for himself as one of the greatest fighters of his generation, but after his second defeat to heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk in December 2024, he has decided to step away from the ring.

Though he is far from the richest person in the world or as wealthy as other sports personalities such as David Beckham, Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo, or Lewis Hamilton, Fury was ranked 42nd on Forbes’ list of the highest-paid athletes in the world in 2024.

Tyson Fury’s net worth stands at $50 million, but not all of it comes from his boxing career. He’s made money both on and off the battleground - such as with his own Netflix show.

We look into how Tyson Fury makes his millions and other ventures that’ll keep him busy through retirement.

Tyson Fury’s net worth as a boxing champion

Tyson Fury is a two-time British heavyweight boxing world champion who has held the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight title since 2020. Named after the legendary American boxer Mike Tyson by his dad, Fury was already making waves in the amateur circuit at the age of 10.

Some of his greatest knockout wins have been against opponents such as Derek Chisora, Wladimir Klitschko and Deontay Wilder. Having found such success in the boxing ring, it’s no wonder that Fury made millions from it. He secured a five-fight deal with ESPN and Top Rank in 2019, which was valued at $100 million. He created history by becoming the most successful purse bid of $41 million in December 2021 (when the highest bidder wins the right to put on the fight) after being challenged by the WBC president to defend his title.

Fury hadn’t tasted defeat in his 16-year career until Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk beat him twice in May and December 2024.

Despite the two losses, both Fury and Usyk pocketed £150 million, though Fury missed out on another £30 million due to the defeat, The Sun reports. Fury had previously earned £79 million from his initial bout with Usyk.

Following his defeat, around £30 million of his prize money will be lost to income tax and national insurance contributions as he’s a UK resident, according to data from JettBet as reported in The Mirror. This means that nearly half (47%) of his winnings would be taken by HMRC – £28 million in income tax and £1.2 million for National Insurance.

Tyson Fury’s business ventures

Outside the boxing ring, Fury has made appearances in the documentary biopic Tyson Fury: The Gypsy King, and shared a glimpse into his family life on the Netflix show At Home with the Furys.

He published an autobiography about his struggle with drugs, alcohol and mental health called Behind The Mask in November 2019, which became an Amazon bestseller in 24 hours. A year later, his second book The Furious Method also became a Sunday Times bestseller.

In a surprise move, he was a guest vocalist for Robbie Williams' album The Christmas Present, where he sang Bad Sharon. Fury also released a cover of Sweet Caroline to raise money for the men's mental health charity Talk Club in 2022.

Fury’s sponsorship deals have also upped his net worth, with earnings from the popular Betr sports betting app and his venture capital platform Anti Fund with entrepreneur Geoffrey Woo.

Fury expanded his business ventures by launching a range of energy drinks under the brand Furocity Energy, as competition to Red Bull and Monster Energy.

In June 204, The Mirror revealed that Fury’s business empire had more than doubled and was worth over £80 million, according to his company Tyson Fury Limited’s accounts. It means that in the 18 months to June, he earned £381,000 a week, including when he won title fights against Derek Chisora and Dillian Whyte.

Is Tyson Fury retiring now?

Fury announced his retirement from boxing in a video posted on Instagram in January 2025.

This isn’t Fury’s first official retirement announcement – he previously announced that he would retire in April 2022, but returned just after six months.

However, the BBC reported that many fans are eager to see a clash between Fury and fellow Briton Anthony Joshua. Joshua even spoke at the Ring Magazine awards that a fight with Fury “has to happen this year”.

When asked about Fury’s retirement, British sports promoter Eddie Hearn told the BBC Sport, “We've been here before. If that is the end, congratulations on a great career.”

“One of the best heavyweights of this generation and made a bucket load of money. If your heart’s not in it, if the fight has been punched out of you, it's definitely time to call it quits.

“A few people will always suggest that he could be calling a bluff, but I don't know him well enough to give you an answer. If you don't want it anymore, if your heart’s not in it anymore, if you've had the fight punched out of you – it's a dangerous game.”

Whether or not you are interested in Kim Kardashian's life, she has been spinning multiple plates and her fortune has made headlines worldwide – so you might be asking, ‘What is Kim Kardashian’s net worth?’

Although Kim isn’t the richest person in the world or the richest woman in the world, the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star is worth a whopping $1.7 billion, according to Forbes.

Find out how Kim Kardashian went from a reality star to a businesswoman, and how this accelerated her net worth.

Who is Kim Kardashian? 

Kim Kardashian became famous through her reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians (KUWTK), starting back in 2007 – a show about the lives of her family, including her mum Kris Jenner and her four sisters Kourtney Khloe Kardashian, and Kendall and Kylie Jenner.

The reality show was the catalyst for Kim and her stardom. In 2012, Kim started dating rapper Kanye West, which captured the media’s attention even more.

The couple had their first child, North West, in June 2013, and then married in May 2014. However, after four children together, Kim filed for divorce in 2021, a process that took two years to finalise.

In the same year, it was the end of an era for the Kardashian/Jenner family, as they said goodbye to their reality show on E! after 20 seasons. But, a year after living without the cameras, the family decided to go back to filming their life for a new show, The Kardashians on Disney Plus.

Despite the hardships Kim faced in her relationship with West (plus the very public and messy divorce), she had her business head screwed on.

How did Kim Kardashian become a billionaire? 

Kim created a fan base through her reality show and leveraged her fame to start other business ventures.

When KUWTK was airing in its early years, Kim and her Kardashian sisters opened the fashion store Dash in 2006. They expanded and opened stores in New York and Miami, which also created spin-off shows on E! when the sisters moved cities to manage the stores.

Not to mention the spin-off show Dash Dolls that also aired on E! That show was dedicated to showing us the lives of those working in the Dash stores.

However, after 12 years, the sisters decided to close all Dash stores. This wasn’t a bad move as it helped them move on to bigger and better ventures.

In 2016, Kim launched her mobile game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, which was downloaded 45 million times and put her on the cover of Forbes. Reports say the game made $160 million in revenue, of which $45 million went to her.

The year 2017 was a game-changer for the reality star. She launched her brand KKW Beauty – following the footsteps of her successful younger sister Kylie Jenner who launched Kylie Cosmetics in November 2015, with her famous lip kits.

Kim launched her brand with Creme Contour Kits – rather than lip kits – costing $48 each. On launch day, reports say she sold nearly 300,000 products within two hours – making more than $14 million.

According to Forbes, a few years later, the star sold 20% of her beauty company to Coty for $200 million. In 2021, Kim then took to social media to announce that her KKW Beauty website would shut down to make space for something even better.

That led to the launch of SKKN in June 2022 – a skincare line that is now valued at $1 billion, according to reports. In January 2024, Kim announced the launch of a make-up range as part of the SKKN brand, including lipglosses, highlighters and eyeshadows.

The businesswoman then launched Skims in 2019 – a brand that creates shapewear to fit a variety of skin and body types. Kim was forced to change the name of her brand, which she initially named ‘Kimono’ after the name was criticised for cultural appropriation. This venture made Kim a billionaire in 2021 when she was listed on the Forbes World Billionaires List. The company, which is partly owned by Jens Grede, is valued at $4 billion (as of July 2023), according to The New York Times. On 5 October 2024, Kim celebrated 5 years of Skims.

The last year has been especially pivotal for Skims, as it became the official underwear partner for the US’s National Basketball Association (NBA), Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and USA Basketball (the men’s national team) in October 2023. A month later, the brand launched a Skims and Swarovski collaboration. Fast-forward to this year and Kim cleverly leveraged the 2024 European Championships, making England’s Jude Bellingham the face of Skims’ new campaign.

Kim Kardashian's other business ventures

Kardashian didn’t stop there. In 2022, she announced the launch of her private equity firm SKKY with Jay Sammons (a self-described “disruptive brand investor”) as co-founder, and her mum, Kris Jenner, as a senior adviser. The firm plans to invest in consumer products, hospitality and luxury.

Kim Kardashian also has a flare for property investment. She has property in LA, Malibu and Palm Springs to name just a few.

And not to forget what comes with the kind of fame that Kardashian excels at – as an influencer – brand endorsements. If we were to list all of them, we’d be here for a while, so successful is she at leveraging her personal brand, but Marc Jacob and Dolce & Gabanna are a couple of ‘big wins’ she had in 2023. Her latest successes in 2024 include becoming a brand ambassador for high-end fashion brand Balenciaga and for the headphone brand Beats Studio Pro.

Curiosity around Robbie Williams’ net worth surged ever since the release of Better Man, a musical biopic based on the English singer-songwriter’s life.

Williams, who is portrayed by a CGI chimpanzee in the film, shot to fame in the 1990s as a member of the popular boy band Take That. He left the group in 1995, during the Nobody Else tour, and kicked off his solo career a year later.

Despite his musical success and accolades – like being inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame after being voted the Greatest Artist of the 1990s – the singer isn’t quite as wealthy as fellow pop stars Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Selena Gomez, and Rihanna.

We take a look at just how rich the star is.

What is Robbie Williams’ net worth?

Robbie Williams has a net worth of $300 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. He’s regarded as one of the best-selling British artists of all time and has sold more than 75 million records worldwide. According to GQ, Williams has the third most UK Number 1 albums compared to any other artist.

Robbie Williams, or Robert Peter Williams, was born in Stoke-on-Trent on 13 February 1974. His music career started in 1990 when he joined the boy band Take That at just 16 years old.

Take That were hugely popular in the 1990s, with the band having 12 Number 1 singles in the UK. However, the group’s success never reached the US.

In 1995, Williams decided to split from the group and pursue a solo career. Fast forward to 2002, the singer signed a deal with record label EMI, which is owned by Universal Music Group, and has represented the likes of The Beatles and Pink Floyd.

Williams signed a whopping £80 million contract with EMI for his next six albums, which made him the highest-paid British artist in the history of recording – second only to Michael Jackson.

During a press conference disclosing this deal, Williams cheerfully exclaimed: “I’m rich beyond my wildest dreams!” The Guardian reported that EMI’s share price dropped by 1.75p following the announcement.

Luckily for the shareholders, the record-breaking titles kept on coming. Williams set the record in 2005 for the most tickets sold in one day for the European leg of his Close Encounters tour – selling 1.6 million tickets.

Meanwhile, Take That lasted a year without Williams before splitting up in 1996. They reunited in 2005, went on tour the following year, and even performed at the London 2012 Olympics.

Williams’ decision to leave Take That worked out in his favour; he overtook his ex-band members in terms of accumulated wealth, becoming richer than the lead singer Gary Barlow.

On 21 May 2025, he announced a new album, Britpop, due to be released on 10 October 2025 by Columbia Records.

How Robbie Williams makes millions off the stage

Williams didn’t just focus on making money from singing, he also took up other opportunities. The artist did the voiceover for a character in the animated movie The Magic Roundabout in 2005, but there are no figures on how much this deal was worth.

In 2018, Williams became a judge on the UK’s X Factor with his wife Ayda Field, and the deal was worth around £10 million. However, after just one season, Williams quit the judging panel.

He also has an immense property portfolio. He sold his Beverly Hills mansion in 2021 to Canadian rapper Drake for $75 million, according to Forbes. Williams and Ayda now own another home in Beverly Hills, worth a reported £38.9 million.

The singer also sold two other properties in 2021 – his £6.75 million home in Wiltshire and his £24 million property in Switzerland. In 2014, Williams bought a house in West London, which is reportedly worth £17.5million.

The hype around Williams hasn’t waned – in December 2024, Better Man was released in cinemas, a biographical musical drama charting the singer’s rise, fall and resurgence. While the film tanked at the box office, it was nominated for several awards, including an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

In May 2025, an exhibition of his artwork opened in London’s Moco Museum, called Radical Honesty.

Williams is also known for his charity work. He has supported UNICEF since 1998 and, in 2000, he became an ambassador for the charity. Throughout his career, he has helped raise awareness of HIV and AIDs and has travelled to parts of Africa and Mexico for his charity work.

Williams also launched Soccer Aid for UNICEF in the UK in 2006, which has now become a phenomenon, attracting football stars and celebrity players, and raising millions of pounds.

The net worth of the richest person in the world is double that of the billionaire with the second-largest fortune.

While the wealthiest people in the world often change places on the rich list, the one person who has consistently held the top spot since 2025 is Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk – except for one time when he briefly dropped to second place, behind Oracle’s Larry Ellison last year.

In total, the five richest people in the world have a combined net worth of close to $2 trillion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. Using the same index, we explore their wealth in detail below.

As the wealthiest bunch are all men, we take a look at the richest woman in the world in a separate guide.

The richest person in the world

1. Elon Musk  

Elon Musk is the richest person in the world, with a staggering $733 billion to his name.

The South African entrepreneur has added over a hundred billion to his net worth in the past year, thanks to buzz around the upcoming SpaceX initial public offering (IPO), touted to be the largest IPO in history. It has made him richer than the two billionaires right below him on the rich list combined.

Moreover, Tesla stock has surged nearly 14-fold since the pandemic, with a market capitalisation of $1.36 trillion at the time of writing.

Musk owns around 11% of Tesla and roughly 50% of SpaceX. We break down Elon Musk’s net worth in a separate guide.

2. Larry Page

Alphabet co-founder Larry Page’s net worth has topped $300 billion for the first time in history, as Google’s parent company’s stock rose in the latest Mag 7 earnings season after increased AI spending. His net worth now stands at $328 billion.

A majority of Page’s wealth comes from his stake in Google, which rebranded as Alphabet in 2015, grouping all its divisions – including Gmail, Android and YouTube – under one umbrella. He’s not the only mind behind Google in the rich list – as you’ll see below.

Find out more about Larry Page's net worth.

3. Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Alphabet, is a new entrant to this list. He has a net worth of $305 billion, not far behind that of fellow co-founder Larry Page.

The American businessman was the president of Alphabet until 2019, and has since remained a board member and a controlling shareholder. He co-founded Google with Larry Page in 1998, after the two met at Stanford University.

Alphabet became the fourth company to achieve a market capitalisation of $4 trillion, joining the likes of Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple to hit the milestone. Its stock grew by 65% last year, marking the largest single-year jump for the company since 2009.

Brin has been donating millions of dollars of his shares in Alphabet to fund research on Parkinson’s disease.

4. Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $284 billion. The billionaire is most famous for founding Amazon in 1994, which started when Bezos saw a gap in the market for e-commerce and began to sell books online, working out of his garage. Now, the empire has a market capitalisation of $2.85 trillion.

Bezos also owns The Washington Post, one of the largest newspapers in the United States. He also has a stake in Blue Origin, a space exploration company he founded in 2000.

Bezos is increasingly looking to dominate the world of film and fashion. He was the lead sponsor and honorary co-chair of the 2026 Met Gala and donated $10 million, making it the largest individual financial commitment in the event’s history.

Moreover, last year, Amazon took creative control of the James Bond franchise. Back in 2021, it acquired MGM Studios, a historic American production company, for $8.45 billion. Some of MGM’s most popular films include The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Find out more about the factors that contributed to Jeff Bezos’ net worth.

5.  Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison is the man behind one of the world’s largest software companies, Oracle, which he founded in 1977. His net worth is $248 billion.

Ellison owns more than 40% of Oracle – making him the largest shareholder – and has holdings in Tesla, having been one of the company’s board of directors from 2018 to 2022.

On 10 September 2025, Ellison briefly overtook Elon Musk as the richest person in the world, a title Musk had claimed for just over 300 days. This was due to Oracle’s earnings report, which revealed a deal with OpenAI.

It resulted in gains of 36% in a single day for the database software company’s share price, adding almost $250 billion to its market capitalisation and around $89 billion to Ellison’s personal wealth. Major Oracle shareholders also became wealthier instantly.

Read more on Larry Ellison’s net worth and how he makes the rest of his billions away from Oracle.

David and Victoria Beckham are now billionaires, after their combined fortune doubled over the past year.

The former Manchester United player and Spice Girls pop star are now worth an estimated £1.185 billion, according to The Sunday Times Rich List 2026.

The milestone places David Beckham among the world’s wealthiest sports personalities, alongside Cristiano Ronaldo, Rory McIlroy, Lewis Hamilton and Michael Jordan. It also makes him the first British sportsman to achieve billionaire status.

While the couple's fortune does not rank them among the richest people in the world, the Beckhams have built one of Britain’s most recognisable celebrity brands. David and Victoria have fronted their own successful Netflix documentaries, while their business interests span fashion, sport, media and global partnerships.

In 2025, Sir David Beckham was knighted by King Charles III at Windsor Castle, while Victoria adopted a new title of Lady Beckham.

David Beckham’s net worth

David Beckham shot to fame in 1996 when the Manchester United midfielder scored from the halfway line against Wimbledon. His skills made headlines and later inspired the 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham.

Over the next few years, Beckham became one of football’s biggest commercial stars, earning millions from sponsorships and endorsements in addition to his footballing salary. It is widely claimed that during his time at Manchester United, he was paid £1.5 million a season before bonuses – around six times what the average Premier League player earned.

By 1999, he was the world’s second-highest-paid footballer. Beckham joined Manchester United as a youth trainee alongside Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and Paul Scholes – popularly known as the Class of '92. He won six Premier League titles, two FA Cups and captained England for six years between 2000 and 2006.

In 2003, Manchester United accepted a £25 million bid from Real Madrid. Beckham spent four seasons in Spain as part of the club’s famous ‘Galácticos’ alongside Zidane, Ronaldo and Figo, winning La Liga in his final season.

He then signed a five-year deal with LA Galaxy, breaking into the world of US football. His deal was reported to be a whopping $250 million over five years, including a base salary of $6.5 million per year.

By 2010, he was the first British footballer to play 100 Champions League matches. Beckham hung up his boots in 2013, at which point he was worth around £165 million.

Throughout his career, Beckham secured some of the most lucrative endorsement deals in sport. His lifetime Adidas contract, signed in 2003, was worth $160.8 million – one of the biggest sports sponsorship deals at that time. His other big brand endorsements include Calvin Klein, PepsiCo, Armani, Maserati, Stella Artois, and Samsung. In 2006, his legs were insured by Lloyd’s of London for a whopping £100 million.

He is co-owner and president of Inter Miami CF, which boasts eight-time Ballon d'Or winner Lionel Messi as its captain. Beckham exercised an option to buy the MLS franchise for $25 million, and the team has since won its first MLS Cup title. Inter Miami is valued at around $1.2 billion, which means that Beckham’s 26% stake is worth a whopping $312 million.

He also owns production company Studio 99, remains a global ambassador for brands Pepsi and Stella Artois, and holds a stake in Authentic Brands, owner of Reebok, Nautica and Juicy Couture, as well as the rights to the estates of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali.

In 2021, Beckham signed a £150 million 10-year deal with Qatar, which remains one of his biggest but most controversial deals to date.

Away from business, Beckham is a founding member of Malaria No More UK, supports Help for Heroes and is a UNICEF Ambassador for his work on children's rights. He was named in the Time 100 Philanthropy 2025 list.

Victoria Beckham’s net worth

Victoria Beckham rose to fame in the 1990s as one-fifth of the English pop group Spice Girls. She was nicknamed Posh Spice and sang alongside Mel B (Scary Spice), Melanie C (Sporty Spice), Emma Bunton (Baby Spice) and Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice). Having sold more than 100 million records worldwide, the group remains the best-selling girl group of all time.

Following the band’s split in 2000, Victoria briefly pursued a solo music career before pivoting to the fashion industry.

Over the years, she became a fixture in the luxury fashion world. She launched her eponymous fashion label in 2008, which won Designer Brand of the Year at the 2011 British Fashion Awards. She later expanded into beauty with Victoria Beckham Beauty, which generated revenues of more than $170 million in 2025. The Beckhams reportedly own a 35% stake in the business, worth roughly £130 million.

Victoria is also known for her extensive collection of Hermès Birkin handbags, reportedly worth over £1.5 million.

How the Beckhams became a brand

Few celebrity couples have turned their fame into such a successful global business empire.

Following David Beckham’s retirement, he reportedly earned $75 million in his first year away from the pitch – more than in any previous playing season.

Netflix has also helped cement the Beckham brand. David’s 2023 documentary chronicled his football career and family life, while Victoria’s 2025 series explored her journey from being a pop star to a fashion icon.

The couple also own an impressive property portfolio, including a £6.15 million Grade II-listed property near the Cotswolds, a £31.5 million home in Holland Park, a waterfront mansion in Miami which they purchased for around £60 million and an apartment in Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, for just under £4 million.

‘Love Story’ was one of the early hits that helped propel Taylor Swift into the spotlight. Nearly two decades later, it seems that the singer-songwriter is living the fairytale — after selling out stadiums at her billion-dollar Eras Tour and releasing her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.

It’s no wonder that Swift is in her ‘billionaire era’, with a net worth of $1.6 billion, according to Forbes. It doesn’t make her the richest woman in the world, but she is now the richest female musician, surpassing Rihanna.

We delve into Swift's net worth, how she became so successful, and her long-running battle over her music ownership, which finally concluded earlier this year.

How did Taylor Swift become famous?

Named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, Swift was born on 13 December 1989 in West Reading, Pennsylvania and showed an early interest in music. At age 12, she learned to play the guitar and began writing songs.

Swift's big break came in 2006 when, at just 17, she signed a record deal with Big Machine Records. Her debut album was a critical and commercial success, spawning several hit singles, including ‘Our Song’, which became Taylor Swift's first number-one hit on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.

Although her career began in country music, her songs quickly gained mass appeal. Her second album, Fearless, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart and later became the top-selling album of 2009.

Experimenting with different musical styles and establishing her versatility as a songwriter, her fourth album in 2012, Red, hit the jackpot, cementing her status as one of the biggest pop stars in the world.

Two years later, her fifth album, 1989, marked a departure from her country roots and embraced a full pop sound, becoming a commercial and critical success that won her several awards, including the Grammy for Album of the Year.

In 2019, she released Lover, her first album with Republic Records, which became one of the best-selling albums by a solo artist worldwide.

The pandemic didn’t stop the singer from releasing new music. During 2020, she released two sister albums – Folklore and Evermore – marking a shift towards indie folk music. The former made Swift the first woman to win a Grammy for Album of the Year three times.

Since then, she has gone on to release re-recordings of Fearless (Taylor's Version), Red (Taylor's Version), Speak Now (Taylor's Version) and 1989 (Taylor's Version). She also released Midnights in 2022 and The Tortured Poets Department in 2024.

Between March 2023 and December 2024, Swift was on her billion-dollar Eras Tour, which covered all of her studio albums to date.

Taylor Swift's net worth explained

Taylor Swift is one of the few artists who has reached billionaire status from music sales and performing alone, without the need for side hustles. The Eras Tour and re-recording her first six albums to regain ownership rights were two key milestones in building her net worth.

An immense $800 million has come from music royalties and touring, according to estimates from Forbes. Her music catalogue is worth an estimated $600 million, and she is also thought to have around $110 million in real estate.

The Eras Tour sold more than $2 billion in tickets, The New York Times reported, which is double the gross ticket sales of any concert in history. Her eight nights performing at Wembley Stadium also drew more than 750,000 people. To put this into perspective, that’s roughly how many people live in Seattle.

Box Office Mojo reports that her last concert film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, became the highest-grossing concert/documentary film in box office history, earning more than $261 million globally. It sold about $93 million in tickets during its opening weekend, crushing the previous record held by Spider-Man: No Way Home.

CNN reports that Swift’s decision to work with movie theatre chain AMC directly means she gets to keep a large share of the profits.

More recently, Swift released another concert movie with AMC, Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, which is framed as a release party for her latest album and is currently playing in theatres around the world. According to Deadline, it’s expected to rake in around $45 million globally.

Taylor Swift’s property portfolio is just as extensive as her music catalogue. Her real estate empire is worth a whopping $150 million, according to Elle Decor. It includes eight homes across four states in the US, ranging from a $150 million penthouse in Manhattan to a historic 12,000-square-foot beach house in Rhode Island. The latter once belonged to socialite Rebekah Harkness, who is the inspiration behind Swift’s song ‘The Last Great American Dynasty’.

What is Travis Kelce’s net worth?

Taylor Swift is set for an exciting next chapter after announcing her engagement to American football player Travis Kelce on 26 August.

In photos shared on Instagram, Swift wore a large engagement ring that diamond experts have tentatively estimated to cost anywhere between $500,000 and $1 million.

Both Swift and Kelce will bring independent wealth to their marriage, but the NFL player has a far smaller fortune than his fiancée. The three-time Super Bowl champion is worth around $70 million, according to Forbes.

That said, their joint brand could become valuable in its own right. Brand Beckham is just one example of how celebrity couples can compound their fame by tying the knot and drawing on each other’s fanbase.

We have already seen evidence of this with Swift and Kelce. The singer-songwriter recently appeared on New Heights, a podcast hosted by Kelce and his brother, during which she announced her new album.

Swift’s appearance meant the podcast set a new Guinness World Record, attracting 1.3 million concurrent views. This was the highest figure ever recorded for a podcast shown on YouTube. The podcast now has over three million views on the platform.

Taylor Swift's cultural influence

From teen idol to pop icon, the American singer-songwriter’s influence is substantial.

In June 2015, Swift criticised Apple Music for not giving royalties to artists during its free three-month trial period, threatening to withdraw her catalogue from the platform. This prompted Apple Music to announce that it would start paying artists during the free trial.

Meanwhile, when The Eras Tour arrived on UK soil last summer, it boosted UK spending and prevented inflation from falling below 2% in June 2024.

Swift’s tour injected roughly $5 billion into the US economy, thanks to The Eras Tour. Fans spent an average of $1,300 on food, travel, accommodation, and merchandise. This is about as much as fans of the Super Bowl spend, CNN reported.

The pop star made headlines after endorsing Kamala Harris during the 2024 US election. According to the General Services Administration, which runs the vote.gov site, Swift’s Instagram endorsement drove more than 400,000 people to the website in less than 24 hours.

Why did Taylor Swift have to buy her music back?

Swift released some of her best-selling music under the Big Machine label. The contract with the record label lasted from 2005 to 2018, and when the deal was up, the artist switched to Universal’s Republic Records. However, Big Machine owned the original recordings of her first six albums.

Big Machine was acquired in 2019 by private equity group Ithaca Holdings, owned by music manager Scooter Braun. Just 17 months later, Braun sold the rights to Swift’s master recordings to Shamrock Capital, a California-based private equity firm. Swift publicly criticised the deal: “This just happened to me without my approval, consultation or consent.”

In 2020, Swift announced she would re-record her first six albums in a bid to regain control of her music. She called her re-releases ‘Taylor's Version’, gambling on her huge fan base to embrace the new recordings.

Four of the re-recorded albums were released – all topping the Billboard 200 charts – before Swift revealed she had finally bought back her master recordings from Shamrock Capital. On 30 May 2025, she posted a photo holding vinyl copies of all six albums with the caption “You Belong With Me”.

It is not yet known how much she paid for the records, but according to Billboard, Shamrock initially bought the rights for around $360 million, and Swift paid close to the original amount.

Ed Sheeran’s net worth makes him one of the richest English musicians – but just how wealthy is he, and where does it all come from?

The singer-songwriter has built a fortune from his music over the last decade. While he’s nowhere close to being the richest person in the world, or even earning as much as fellow pop stars Taylor Swift, Rihanna or Selena Gomez, he is still very wealthy by any standard.

According to The Sunday Times Rich List, Ed Sheeran has a net worth of £370 million. It makes him one of Britain’s richest people under 40, along with golfer Rory McIlroy and actor Daniel Radcliffe.

But how exactly did he get to where he is today, and how did he make his millions? We take a closer look.

How Ed Sheeran started his music career

Ed Sheeran was born on 17 February 1991 in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and grew up in Framlingham, Suffolk. His music career began at a young age, when he started performing in local pubs and clubs to earn money.

Sheeran’s career leapt forward with the release of his debut album + in 2011, which topped the UK Albums Chart and won him the Brit Award for Best British Male Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act. His second studio album x became the second bestselling album worldwide and won him two Grammys for the song Thinking Out Loud.

His third album ÷ came out in 2017, when its two singles Shape of You and Castle on the Hill broke records in many countries for debuting at the top two positions.

Sheeran is now one of the world’s bestselling music artists and the third most-followed artist on Spotify with over 90 million monthly listeners. His eighth studio album, Play, is set to be released in September 2025.

While Ed Sheeran may be best known for his own music, not many may know that he has also helped write songs for One Direction, Justin Bieber, Eminem and Rita Ora.

The star has appeared in several movies and TV shows, including Game of Thrones and Bridget Jones's Baby.

Ed Sheeran’s cultural impact

Ed Sheeran’s career has gone from strength to strength, cementing his position as one of the music industry’s most influential figures, but his work as an artist has only been part of the picture.

Like most musicians, Sheeran also makes money from tours, which can be highly lucrative.

The Divide tour made more than $775 million from 8.9 million tickets sold on six continents, according to Forbes. It became one of the highest-grossing tours of all time, next to Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour and Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour.

The artist is currently in the middle of his +–=÷× Tour (pronounced The Mathematics Tour). It kicked off on 23 April 2022 and is supposed to go on until 8 September 2025, with a grand total of 164 shows.

According to Pollstar, it was the seventh-highest-grossing tour of 2023, earning more than $268 million (£211 million) in just 54 shows.

On top of his tours, music and songwriting, Sheeran has his music label, Gingerbread Man Records – a deal with Warner Music Group.

He has a bar called Bertie Blossoms in Notting Hill, which he named after his wife, Cherry Seaborn.

In 2019, Sheeran appeared in an advertisement for Heinz Tomato Ketchup, being a lifelong fan of the product – he even has a Heinz Ketchup tattoo on his arm.

He also owns nearly 30 properties in London. Sheeran most recently purchased a £8.25 million luxury office block in Soho, thought to be his first investment in commercial property. The singer-songwriter also has a villa in Umbria, Italy, and a £3.7 million estate in Suffolk.

Last year, Ipswich Town FC announced that Sheeran had acquired a minority 1.4% stake in the Premier League club, which is also his hometown football team. The club’s third kit for the 2024-25 season featured Ed Sheeran x Ipswich Town inside the neck and the Mathematics Tour logo on the front.

Read more:

• What is Robbie Williams’ net worth?
• What is David Beckham's net worth?
• What is Michael Jordan's net worth?

Cristiano Ronaldo’s net worth and number of goals scored have one thing in common – they’re both incredibly high.

Regarded as one of the greatest footballers to have ever graced the sport, Ronaldo’s skills have cemented his status as a global icon, far beyond the world of football. He is edging closer to scoring 1,000 goals and has played over 1,250 matches – and it doesn’t stop there.

While he isn’t the richest person in the world, Ronaldo joins the ranks of sporting greats like David Beckham, Lewis Hamilton, Michael Jordan and Rory McIlroy in being extremely wealthy.

Forbes estimates Ronaldo’s net worth to be an astonishing $275 million, making him the highest-paid athlete in the world – and the first footballer to surpass $1 billion in career earnings.

Last year, Ronaldo’s social media channels exceeded 1 billion followers across Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter), making him the world’s most-followed athlete and the first person to ever achieve this feat, according to the BBC.

Ronaldo’s reach has only expanded since launching his own YouTube channel, UR Cristiano, which now has over 75 million followers. Ronaldo’s brand partnerships, including his CR7 enterprise, have added to his wealth.

We explore how Cristiano Ronaldo built his fortune, what his latest pay package with Al-Nassr looks like, and whether he’s set to retire anytime soon.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s net worth

Cristiano Ronaldo's football career is one of the most storied in the history of the sport. Born in Madeira, Portugal, in 1985, Ronaldo began playing football at a young age and quickly caught the attention of top scouts from some of Europe's elite football clubs.

Ronaldo didn’t waste any time rising to the top of the game, signing up with Manchester United in 2003. Over the next few years, he helped the Red Devils win numerous league titles and Champions League trophies. In 2008, he claimed his first Ballon d'Or award.

The next year, Ronaldo achieved the first of what would become a string of world-record transfer fees. Real Madrid paid £80 million for the player – a move that led the football club to numerous victories, including multiple league titles and four Champions League trophies. Along the way, Ronaldo added three more Ballon d'Or awards to his name, solidifying his status as one of the sport’s all-time greats.

As he entered his 30s, Ronaldo continued to dominate the field. In 2018, he transferred to Juventus, where he led the team to two Serie A titles.

He returned to Manchester United in August 2021, but just a year later, he made his most lucrative switch, signing with Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr. According to Goal.com, the player earns a whopping £3.18 million per week, or well over £165 million in a year, although he's reportedly set to get a big pay rise (more on that later).

Cristiano Ronaldo's investment portfolio

Ronaldo is not just a talented football player, he’s also a savvy businessman.

One of his most notable business ventures is his partnership with the Pestana Hotel Group. In 2015, Ronaldo teamed up with the luxury hotel chain to open his first hotel, Pestana CR7, in his hometown of Funchal, Madeira. The hotel features 48 rooms and suites, and a rooftop pool and bar. It has been a popular destination for tourists and football fans alike. Ronaldo has since opened hotels in Lisbon and Madrid.

His real estate portfolio is worth over £80 million, according to Hello! magazine. His most recent addition is a £22 million mansion in his home country. His other properties include a £6 million penthouse apartment in Portugal, a riverside mansion in the Peneda-Gerês National Park, and a warehouse-turned-mansion in Madeira renovated for £7 million, among several others.

Ronaldo also has a large presence in the fashion industry, with his underwear brand, CR7. He’s also collaborated with other fashion brands, including Tag Heuer, KFC and Armani, and has a lifetime deal with Nike worth as much as $1 billion, per Forbes. Meanwhile, Ronaldo has invested in a football app zujuGP and crypto platform Binance.

There’s also his impressive car collection that includes a limited edition £8.5 million Bugatti Centodieci, a Ferrari F12 TDF, a Porsche 911 and a Lamborghini Aventador, according to the duPont Registry.

How much is Ronaldo’s new Al-Nassr deal worth?

The Portuguese player ended speculation about his future by signing a new deal with Al-Nassr, extending his time at the Saudi Pro League team until June 2027. He will be 42 when the deal ends.

According to The Sun, Ronaldo’s latest contract with Al-Nassr could take his income to over half a billion in the next two years. It is one of the most lucrative deals signed in the history of the sport.

Ronaldo will reportedly be receiving £178 million a year in wages (or £3.4 million a week) as well as a £24.5 million signing bonus — that will go up to £38 million if he activates the second year of his contract.

The publication also reports that Ronaldo will be given a 15% stake in the club (worth £33 million), a £4 million bonus for winning the Golden Boot, £8 million if Al-Nassr wins the Saudi Pro League title, and potential sponsorships that could be worth £60 million.

Among many other perks, he will also receive an £80,000 bonus per goal, and £40,000 per assist – both of which increase by 20% in the second year.

Will Cristiano Ronaldo retire in 2025?

At 40, Ronaldo is older than the typical age for a football player to retire. David Beckham hung up his boots at the age of 38, and Wayne Rooney stopped playing at 35. Luis Nani, another famed Portuguese footballer who was teammates with Ronaldo at Manchester United, announced his retirement last year at 38.

Regardless of his next move, Ronaldo's sizeable business interests off the pitch should stand him in good stead to remain one of the richest sports stars in the world.

One of the most iconic figures in basketball’s history, Michael Jordan's net worth is a topic of fascination for many. While Jordan’s fortune does not come close to that of Elon Musk or Bill Gates, he is one of the richest people in the world, reflecting his immense success both on and off the court. Jordan was the first professional athlete to reach billionaire status.

Today, many sports stars, such as David Beckham, Tyson Fury, Lewis Hamilton, and Cristiano Ronaldo have followed in his footsteps, but Jordan pioneered the ‘sports influencer’ persona, using his name recognition within the sport to create a billion-dollar brand far beyond the basketball court.

According to Forbes, Michael Jordan has a net worth of $3.5 billion. We look at where Michael Jordan’s net worth comes from and how he built his fortune.

Michael Jordan’s net worth as a basketball player

Michael Jordan’s basketball career is, in a word, legendary. His most notable achievement was winning six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls between 1991 and 1998, where he was named the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player each time. During this period, his average annual salary was a whopping $900,000.

On top of these accolades, Jordan also holds the record for the highest career scoring average in NBA history. He scored an average of 30.1 points per game, and the record still stands to this day. Before his career in the NBA, Jordan represented his country at the Olympics, winning gold with the USA basketball team in 1984 and 1992.

With this track record, it’s no surprise the player was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009 – the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a basketball player.

Michael Jordan's career as a business mogul 

Michael Jordan is not only one of the greatest basketball players of all time but also a highly successful businessman. He’s amassed a vast fortune through strategic partnerships and his ownership of the Charlotte Hornets.

In 2010, Jordan became the first former NBA player to become the majority owner of an NBA team when he took control of the Charlotte Bobcats, now known as the Charlotte Hornets. While the team has not achieved significant success, losing in the first round of the NBA playoffs three times in the past 13 years, it has nonetheless been a profitable investment for Jordan. He has since sold his stake in the team for $3 billion.

Then there’s Jordan’s partnership with Nike. Jordan signed his first deal with Nike in 1984 to create a new line of branded sneakers, called Air Jordan, worth $500,000 per year plus royalties. Quickly, these sneakers became a cultural phenomenon, and seeing booming sales, Nike expanded the brand into clothing and accessories.

Air Jordan has become one of Nike's most successful product lines. Forbes estimates that Michael Jordan has earned $1.3 billion from the sportswear giant since 1984.

Away from his main business ventures, Jordan has also dabbled in other areas, including car dealerships, sports betting firms, a motorsports team in the NASCAR Cup Series and co-founding the tequila brand Cincoro alongside other NBA owners.

Jordan is one of the most marketed sports figures in history. He is associated with brands such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s and has appeared in more than 20 commercials for Gatorade, famously endorsing the song Be Like Mike.

Jordan’s competitive streak extends beyond the basketball court, driving him to success in the world of business. Recently, Jordan secured a buyer for his $14.85 million mansion ‘Highland Park’, in Chicago after the property had been on the market for 12 years. It features a full-size basketball court, with the Air Jordan logo in the middle, an infinity pool, a putting green, a sauna, a tennis court, and a cigar room.

But despite his widespread appeal, he has maintained tight control over his image rights, creating an air of exclusivity for the Michael Jordan brand.

Larry Page co-founded Google with Sergey Brin and is now one of the richest people in the world. Most of his wealth comes from his stake in Alphabet, which has a market capitalisation of $2.27 trillion. 

According to the Bloomberg BIllionaire Index, Larry Page has a total net worth of $143 billion, making him the sixth wealthiest person, sitting close to Bill Gates and Larry Ellison on the billionaire rich list.  

Here we look at how Larry Page built Google into one of the world’s most prominent tech companies and how it turned him into a billionaire in the process.  

Larry Page and Google 

Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University in the late 1990s. They decided to work together on a tool that would revolutionise the way people find information on the internet – what we now call a search engine. 

While there were search engines at the time, many were poorly designed and had many flaws, making it hard to find the right information. Page and Brin set out to change that and build a tool that would be more efficient and accurate than other options available. 

The Stanford students began by developing an algorithm that ranked web pages based on the number and quality of links pointing to them (a part of the ranking process that’s still used today). Initially, the founders named their search engine "Backrub" and tested it on the Stanford University website. 

The results from the initial test were very positive, and Page and Brin set out to take the platform to a wider audience. They registered the domain name "Google.com" in 1997 and started working on the project full-time, setting up their first office in a garage in Menlo Park, California. The duo only hired a handful of employees to begin with and worked tirelessly to refine their algorithm with the overall goal of making Google the most effective search engine in the world. 

In 1998, Google officially launched to "organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," and it soon became the world’s go-to search engine. The name Google has even become synonymous with searching the web for information. 

Over the years, Google has branched out, taking its position in search to build out other services, using its data to help refine products and improve the user experience. Its Gmail, Google Maps, Google Drive and YouTube products are used by hundreds of millions of people around the world every day. 

Larry Page’s net worth booms as Google expands 

In October 2015, Google announced that it was rebranding itself as Alphabet. The move was designed to restructure all of the group’s individual divisions under one umbrella, better reflecting the diversified nature of the enterprise. The search engine is still known as ‘Google.’

There were a couple of reasons behind the company’s decision. 

First, Google had grown into a massive conglomerate of businesses and services. It had expanded into areas such as advertising, mobile operating systems, cloud services, artificial intelligence and more. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) has also played a huge role in Google moving forward with technology and staying competitive. According to Fortune, the use of AI has added more than $18 billion to the co-founders’ combined wealth. As Google continued to grow, it became increasingly challenging to manage all of these different businesses under one umbrella. 

Second, Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin found themselves spending more time managing the company and less time working on these ambitious projects – the reason they started the business in the first place. By creating Alphabet, Page and Brin hoped to give themselves more time to focus on these new ventures.

Third, Google has faced increasing regulatory scrutiny in recent years, particularly in Europe. By creating Alphabet, Google hoped to separate its core search and advertising business from its other ventures to make it easier for Alphabet (and the Google subsidiary) to avoid regulatory scrutiny.

It was also an opportunity for Google to shed some of the negative ideas that had developed around the company. It has faced plenty of criticism over the years around issues such as privacy, censorship and market control. By splitting itself apart, and showing regulators its divisions are all working independently, the group hoped to present itself as a more responsible and innovative company.

The future of Alphabet 

Google’s transition to Alphabet marked the company's shift from a search engine to one of the world’s most influential technology businesses, which today is responsible for billions of hours of user content every day. 

Plus, Alphabet now sits under the ‘magnificent seven stocks’ which is a group of the biggest tech companies. It includes Jeff Bezos’s Amazon and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta – although Nvidia recently dethroned Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable company. 

Despite the fact that Page and Brin have taken a step back from the daily management of Alphabet, they have a long-term goal in mind. Alphabet is allowing the founders to look to the future and follow their own interests, such as prolonging human life AI and self-driving vehicles. 

Steve Ballmer was Microsoft’s CEO from 2000 to 2014, and today he is one of the richest people in the world, primarily thanks to his stake in Microsoft, along with the company’s founder, Bill Gates. 

As well as his investment in Microsoft, Ballmer is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers an NBA basketball team. 

According to Bloomberg, Steve Ballmer has a total net worth of $141 billion, making him the eighth richest person in the world, and one of a group of individuals who’ve built large fortunes from technology. 

Here we look at how Steve Ballmer built his fortune and the factors contributing to his net wealth today.

Steve Ballmer’s net worth history  

Steve Ballmer became CEO of Microsoft in 2000, succeeding Bill Gates who co-founded the business and acted as its CEO until 2000. Ballmer had joined Microsoft back in 1980 as the company's 30th employee. As the business grew, he worked his way up through the ranks. He served in various roles, including senior vice president of sales and support, before being named CEO, having built a vast understanding of the enterprise. 

Ballmer's leadership style was known for being energetic and passionate, which was required at the time. During his tenure, Microsoft underwent a period of explosive growth, particularly in enterprise software and cloud computing, and Ballmer's leadership played a key role in the expansion of Microsoft's offering, mainly in the enterprise software (or business software) market. 

The Windows operating system has always been Microsoft's flagship product, and it was a world-beating product when Ballmer took over. However, it continued to evolve and improve throughout the 2000s, under the new CEO's leadership. The release of Windows XP in 2001 was a significant milestone, helping the company cement its position in the market at a time when the world was seeing a tech revolution. 

But Microsoft never took its position for granted. As the internet became more important in people's lives, and more companies sprang up offering connected services, Microsoft shifted to developing software and services optimised for online use, away from PC-based operating systems. Products like Internet Explorer and MSN Messenger made sure the business was at the forefront of the internet revolution, and Ballmer was a key player in pushing the business towards these markets. 

The development of products such as Azure and Office 365, also developed under Ballmer’s leadership, helped Microsoft become the go-to cloud computing and internet enable tech group in the world. As it rode the growth of technology, revenues grew from $25 billion in 2000 to over $70 billion in 2013.

Microsoft’s failures

Despite the company’s success during the 2000s, Ballmer missed some key opportunities, such as mobile devices and search. Ballmer famously dismissed the potential of the iPhone upon its release, and Microsoft's own attempts at creating a mobile operating system were met with little success – something the business is still paying for to this day, although its position in the cloud market has helped it offset most of the lost profits. 

Additionally, the company struggled to compete with Google in the search market, with its Bing search engine failing to gain significant market share. This is also something the business is struggling with even to this day, although Microsoft is a key shareholder in ChatGPT’s parent company OpenAI, and this might help the enterprise gain an edge over its long-time rival. 

What Ballmer did pick up on was the growth of the global gaming market. The establishment of the company's Xbox gaming division took Microsoft out of its core market and opened up a huge new one, even though it was a risk to begin with. Today, Xbox is one of the main console providers in the world.

In 2014, Ballmer stepped down as CEO of Microsoft, marking the the beginning of a new era as it started to build on the success of the Ballmer leadership.  

How Steve Ballmer spends his money  

Even though Ballmer retired as CEO of Microsoft in 2014, he has continued to stay active in the tech industry, investing in several other tech startups, including Twitter (now X) and Airbnb.

One of Ballmer's main focuses today is his role as the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, which he acquired in 2014. He is also a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he shares his insights and experience with the next generation of business leaders, and founded the Ballmer Group, a philanthropic organisation with his wife, Connie. 

Since co-founding Oracle in 1977, Larry Ellison has become one of the world's wealthiest individuals, primarily thanks to his majority stake in the business.

Almost five decades on from co-founding the firm, the tech billionaire continues to make waves in the world of artificial intelligence and technological innovation.

Ellison, who is the largest shareholder of the database software company, briefly dethroned Elon Musk as the richest person in the world. On 10 September, his net worth surged by $89 billion due to Oracle’s latest deal with OpenAI.

He’s now worth a staggering $349 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.

Here, we look at how Larry Ellison built his fortune and the factors contributing to his net wealth today.

How Larry Ellison started Oracle

Oracle Corporation, one of the largest software companies in the world, is known for its database management systems, cloud services and enterprise software solutions. He owns over 40% of the software company.

Ellison was born in New York City in 1944. Despite being a bright student, he struggled with authority and dropped out of college twice before finally getting a degree in computer science from the University of Illinois.

After college, Ellison moved to California and started working for several tech companies. He was a talented programmer and quickly made a name for himself in the industry. However, Ellison had a vision for a new kind of software company that would revolutionise how businesses manage their data.

In 1977, Ellison teamed up with two friends, Bob Miner and Ed Oates, to start a company called Software Development Laboratories (SDL). The company's goal was to create a new kind of database management system that would be faster and more efficient than anything on the market. Ellison, Miner and Oates worked tirelessly to develop this new software and, in 1979, they released their first product: Oracle.

Oracle was an instant success. Businesses loved the software's speed, efficiency and reliability. Oracle quickly became a go-to database management system for corporations, and the company grew rapidly. By the mid-1980s, Oracle was one of the fastest-growing software companies in the world, competing against software giants like Microsoft, Intel and IBM.

Today, Oracle’s products and services are used by some of the largest corporations in the world, including Walmart, Coca-Cola and Bank of America. According to the company’s annual earnings report, Oracle earned $57.4 billion in revenue, up by 8% from the year before.

Oracle has also made several tech acquisitions. According to marketing platform Thomas, this includes Hyperion Solutions for $3.3 billion in 2007, Sun Microsystems for $7 billion in 2010, NetSuite for $9.3 billion in 2016, and Cerner for $28.3 billion in 2022.

Larry Ellison's other ventures

Ellison founded the Lanai Resorts LLC, a company that owns two luxury resorts on the Hawaiian island of Lanai. He purchased 98% of the island in 2012 and has since invested in rebuilding the infrastructure and improving the tourism industry on the island. He also resides on the island.

Ellison has also been heavily involved in the America's Cup yacht race, sponsoring and leading his own team, Oracle Team USA. The team won the competition twice under Ellison's leadership.

Ellison was on the board of electric vehicle maker Tesla from December 2018 to August 2022, and owns a minority stake in the company. He contributed around a billion dollars for Musk’s takeover of Twitter, now X, in 2022.

Ellison was also an early investor in healthcare start-up Theranos and founded Sensei Ag in 2018, an agricultural technology company that is developing hydroponic farms in Lanai.

In addition to his business ventures, Ellison has been actively involved in philanthropy. He has donated millions of dollars to various causes, including medical research, education and environmental conservation. His foundation, the Ellison Medical Foundation, has funded research on ageing and age-related diseases.

Bernard Arnault’s net worth is $173 billion, making him the fifth richest person in the world according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. Arnault is one of the majority shareholders in the luxury group LVMH, a company he's built over the past few decades. Like most of the world’s richest entrepreneurs, such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, Arnault’s hard work building a global business empire has paid off handsomely.

However, the last couple of months have been rocky for Arnault – at the end of September, LVMH suffered a 20% fall in its stock price, shaving $54 billion off his net worth, according to Fortune. But it bounced back at the start of October after China announced its stimulus plan to grow – it’s no surprise as LVMH relies heavily on China for its sales.

Here we look at how Bernard Arnault built his fortune and the factors contributing to his net wealth today.

Bernard Arnault's net worth

Bernard Arnault inherited his father's construction company, Ferret-Savinel, in 1971, although he quickly realised it wasn't what he wanted to do with his life.

The young businessman sold the company and used the proceeds to help fund the acquisition of Christian Dior in 1985 – the company that would become the foundation of LVMH.

Arnault had always been interested in luxury goods, and with Dior he saw a company with a strong brand and a loyal customer base – the most important components of any luxury brand. However, he also noticed the business wasn’t living up to its full potential. The young businessman believed he had the skills and drive to turn the business into one of the world’s premier luxury companies.

He set about looking for other luxury companies to bolt on to the Dior business. He knew that, in order to compete with the biggest players in the market, he would need a diverse range of products and brands that complemented each other.

With that goal in mind, Arnault merged Dior with several other luxury goods companies in 1987, including Louis Vuitton, Moët et Chandon and Hennessy, to create the conglomerate known as LVMH. The combined group not only had a great stable of businesses under one roof, it also benefited from economies of scale.

The creation of the business came at a great time. Luxury goods have always had a place in the market, but in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were some huge changes going on in the world that acted as tailwinds for the young LVMH.

The biggest of these was the rise of China.

LVMH benefits from China’s economic growth  

In the 1990s, China's economy underwent significant reforms, transitioning from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented economy.

The opening up of China's economy to the world, through the introduction of those market-oriented reforms, created opportunities for businesses to expand their operations and tap into new markets. This led to a surge in global trade and investment as companies sought to take advantage of China's growing economy. It became an important player in the global economy. Its demand for raw materials and commodities helped to boost trade in these sectors, while its expanding middle class provided opportunities for businesses selling consumer goods and services.

China's rise pushed down the cost of goods for other countries, freeing up more disposable income for consumers around the world, to spend on things like luxury products.

Arnault continued to expand LVMH during this period through strategic acquisitions and partnerships, and as the group grew, it was able to swallow up bigger peers. In 1999, LVMH acquired Sephora, a cosmetics retailer; in 2011, it acquired the Italian jewellery brand Bulgari.

In 2020, the group announced its largest deal, the $16 billion acquisition of Tiffany.

With its growing size, LVMH has been able to spend huge amounts on marketing, increasing its market share and visibility to consumers.

Bernard Arnault’s LVMH dynasty 

As the company's largest single shareholder, Bernard Arnault has benefitted from LVMH's rise and rise.

In April 2023, LVHM gave the Tiffany flagship store in Manhattan a makeover and, shortly after this, LVMH became the first European company to reach a market valuation of $500 billion.

More recently, an LVMH-backed private equity group purchased a stake in Oxfordshire-based designer shopping outlet, Bicester Village. The deal went ahead for £1.5 billion.

Now, the company is making an entrance into sport. According to The Telegraph, LVMH will take over the sponsorship deal that Rolex has with F1. There are also rumours that LVMH is teaming up with energy drink Red Bull to buy a small football team in France, Paris FC.

Arnault still holds a great deal of control over LVMH, and members of his family hold key management positions. Earlier this year he appointed his eldest daughter, Delphine, to run Christian Dior, the group's crown jewel. His son, Antoine, runs the holding company that controls LVMH and the family's stake in the enterprise.

The businessman has five children, all of whom have top roles across the group. The youngest, Jean Arnault, is the head of marketing and product development for Louis Vuitton’s watches division at only 26 years of age.

Still, despite Arnault's focus on his family, investors have done very well from owning the shares as well, with LVMH muscling its way in to become one of Europe's largest public companies.

Jeff Bezos is a billionaire thanks to Amazon’s domination in the world of online shopping.

The founder of the e-commerce company trails behind some of the richest people in the world — namely, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg — in the Bloomberg Billionaire Index with a net worth of $240 billion. Meanwhile, Forbes puts his wealth at $233.4 billion.

While the billionaire entrepreneur is often making headlines, all eyes are currently on Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s wedding celebrations, a star-studded event that has reportedly cost millions.

There’s also a lot of buzz around what Amazon MGM Studios decides to do with the next James Bond movie as it assumes creative control of the 007 franchise.

We explore key factors that have expanded Jeff Bezos' net worth below.

How did Jeff Bezos start Amazon?

Jeff Bezos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 12 January 1964 and was raised in Houston, Texas and Miami, Florida. He studied computer science and electrical engineering at Princeton University and graduated with honours.

Bezos worked at many companies on Wall Street, including Fitel, Bankers Trust and D.E. Shaw. But despite his stable finance career, he made a risky move to e-commerce in 1994, by founding Amazon.com — an online bookstore that would revolutionise the way people shopped for books.

Initially, the company was run out of Bezos’ garage, with a handful of employees. In 1995, he managed to convince his siblings, Mark and Christina, to invest $10,000 each in the company. Their investment paid off, and within a year, the company was selling books to customers around the world.

In 1997, Amazon shares debuted via an initial public offering at $18 per share. It made Bezos a billionaire overnight. As of June 2025, Amazon’s market capitalisation is a staggering £1.728 trillion.

Bezos continued to expand Amazon's offerings, adding music, films and, eventually, just about everything else under the sun. Today, Amazon is the world's largest online retailer. The company was responsible for introducing the Kindle, an electronic book reader, in 2007.

In 2021, Bezos stepped down as Amazon CEO, and since then, he has shifted his focus towards other projects like Blue Origin.

Bezos now owns around 8.6% of Amazon, valued at roughly $190.56 billion. Last year, he sold about $13.5 billion worth of shares.

Other factors contributing to Jeff Bezos' net worth

In addition to his success with Amazon, Bezos has made several other investments and acquisitions that have contributed to his net worth.

He bought The Washington Post, one of the largest newspapers in the United States, for $250 million in 2013. Bezos also has a significant stake in Blue Origin, a space exploration company he founded in 2000. The all-female flight crew for its New Shepard rocket included singer-songwriter Katy Perry and TV star Gayle King.

Bezos also holds an extensive real estate portfolio stretching across 420,000 acres, making him America’s 23rd largest landowner, according to the Land Report. This includes a $165 million Warner Estate in Beverly Hills, a 14-acre compound in Maui that cost him $78 million, and three properties on an exclusive island near Miami, which he bought for a whopping $234 million, per the Wall Street Journal.

He also has a 417-foot superyacht, Koru, that cost him at least $500 million, two jets, and two helicopters.

Other than that, his portfolio also includes stakes in Uber, Airbnb, financial news website Business Insider, cloud human resources company Workday, and software company Nextdoor.

Bezos has pledged to give away a majority of his wealth to charity during his lifetime. He committed $10 billion towards fighting climate change through his Bezos Earth Fund, and gave out $117 million in grants to support homeless families across the US and Puerto Rico.

How much did Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's wedding cost?

The Bezos-Sánchez wedding in Venice cost at least $20 – 25 million, according to Forbes’s estimates. Meanwhile, Reuters places the figures between $47 – $56 million.

There was no compromise on its 200-attendee star-studded guest list, with appearances made by Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kim Kardashian and several high-profile celebrities, who were staying at five-star luxury hotels across Venice.

Forbes also reported that the couple’s wedding planners commissioned around 30 private water taxis to escort the guests (Venice has 280 in total), which cost them roughly $270,000 for three days. The catering was by a three-Michelin-star chef, likely to have cost $360,000 for food and beverages for a night, or $1.1 million for the three days.

Bezos donated nearly $3.6 million in total to Corila, UNESCO’s Venice office, and the Venice International University.

While extravagant, the amount pales in comparison to Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s wedding last year, which cost between $400 – $500 million, and included performances from Rihanna and Justin Bieber.

However, Business Insider reports that the Bezos-Sánchez wedding boosted Venice’s economy by a staggering $1.1 billion. This is based on analysis from Italy’s tourism minister and consultancy firm JFC. A lion’s share of the figure (over 90%) came from publicity and media exposure.

What will Amazon do with the James Bond franchise?

Amazon revealed on 20 February 2025 that it had taken creative control of the iconic James Bond franchise. This comes after the e-commerce giant bought MGM — which shares the rights to the series with Eon — in an $8.5 billion deal. This gave Amazon access to a catalogue of more than 4,000 movies and 17,000 shows.

It also means that Amazon MGM Studios and Eon Productions now co-own the intellectual property related to the James Bond franchise.

In more recent news, Amazon announced that legendary Oscar-nominated filmmaker Denis Villeneuve of Dune and Blade Runner 2049 fame will direct the next James Bond film.

Variety reported that the studio is interested in casting Harris Dickinson, Tom Holland, or Jacob Elordi for the role of James Bond.

When you think of social media, the first name that almost immediately comes to mind would be Mark Zuckerberg.

And rightfully so — he’s the mastermind behind Facebook and owns several digital communication platforms, including Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp under the Meta umbrella. According to a January 2025 company presentation, Meta Platforms has around 3.4 billion daily users.

This comfortably ranks him as one of the richest people in the world, placing his net worth at $232 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. However, Forbes puts Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth as $227.1 billion.

How did Zuckerberg build his fortune and what factors contribute to his net worth today? We find out.

Breaking down Mark Zuckerberg's net worth

Almost all of Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth comes from his ownership stake in Meta, which is about 13%, based on a February 2025 filing. How did it all start?

While Zuckerberg was still a student at Harvard University, he created a website called Facemash, which allowed students to rate the attractiveness of their peers. The site caused controversy and was shut down, but it gave Zuckerberg the idea for a social networking site. He began working on a new project that would eventually become Facebook.

Zuckerberg enlisted the help of his roommates, Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin, to build the new site, which they worked on in their dorm room. They launched it on 4 February 2004, initially as thefacebook.com.

It quickly became popular. The site began life confined to the Harvard campus, but as it grew, Zuckerberg and his team expanded it to other universities. The expansion required money, so they reached out to venture capitalists to fund the expansion. As a result, they moved their operation to Palo Alto, California to be among other high-growth startups.

By 2006, the company was worth $525 million. Facebook then opened its doors to anyone with an email address in 2007. When Microsoft bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook in 2007, it added around $240 million in cash to the company. In 2012, the company was worth $104 billion and was, at that time, the largest initial public offering in history.

From Facebook to Meta

Facebook changed its name to Meta in October 2021, signalling a shift in focus towards the metaverse. The metaverse is essentially a virtual universe (think Marvel but for the digital world) with a wide range of applications, from gaming to education to socialising.

While it started with just Facebook, the company soon made several mergers and acquisitions. Some of its high-profile investments include Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion.

In 2019, Zuckerberg integrated an end-to-end encrypted system for the three platforms. A year later, The Verge reported that he merged Instagram and Messenger chats on both iOS and Android, which was another step in unifying the two social media giants.

So far, it’s been a successful journey for Zuckerberg. In 2024, he cashed in more than $2.2 billion according to a Fortune analysis. The Meta co-founder and CEO’s fortunes shot up by 70% as well thanks to investments in AI, adding around $72 billion to his wealth, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index reported.

According to Business Insider, AI enthusiasm has powered the company’s shares this year, having risen over 17%. Meta now commands a market capitalisation of $1.65 trillion, according to Trading Economics, which now puts the company with the likes of Apple and Amazon in the trillion-dollar club.

Zuckerberg recently executed a series of stock transactions which involved Meta’s Class A Common Stock, totalling around $9.17 million, MSN reports. The shares were priced between $700.72 and $716.20 per share.

Zuckerberg has donated a chunk of his wealth to charity over the years. He founded the Startup Education foundation dedicated to improving the quality of public education in Newark. In 2010, Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates signed The Giving Pledge, in which they said they would give a majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. He also donated 18 million Facebook shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation to contribute towards housing and children’s education.

Zuckerberg is married to Priscilla Chan, with whom he started the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. It works on promoting housing affordability, providing economic opportunities and helping eradicate diseases.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett has built an enormous fortune and is one of the richest people in the world.

His recent decision to step down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway has sent shockwaves through the financial world, causing the 94-year-old’s net worth to shrink.

But despite the setback, he is still worth $160 billion, and ranks in the top ten on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, just behind Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Buffett has consistently trailed Gates on the rich list since it launched in 2012.

As the CEO and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett has made several successful strides, including generating average annual returns of 19.8% between 1965 and 2023 — roughly double what the S&P 500 gained over the same period, according to The Motley Fool.

We look at how Warren Buffett built his fortune and what his upcoming retirement means for investors and Berkshire Hathaway.

Warren Buffett’s early years

Born in 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, Buffett showed an early interest in business. Buffett's father was a stockbroker and served as a role model for the young investor.

As a child, he would buy six packs of Coca-Cola for 25 cents and sell each bottle for a nickel, making a tidy profit. He also started a pinball business and purchased the newspaper Buffalo News in 1977.

Buffett grew his newspaper business over the years with the addition of local papers — but in 2020, he decided to sell 31 newspapers for $140 million.

After high school, Buffett attended the University of Nebraska but transferred to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

In 1951, Buffett received his master's degree in economics from Columbia University. At age 24, he received a job offer from his mentor Benjamin Graham, with a salary of $12,000, reports Dividend Growth Investor.

His annual salary was thrice the annual median income for an average family in 1954, according to US Census Bureau data, which means Buffett was already well on his way towards accumulating wealth. Two years later, his net worth was already $140,000.

Warren Buffett's early partnerships significantly influenced his success as an investor and businessman. In the 1950s and 1960s, Buffett formed several partnerships that allowed him to pool his resources with other like-minded investors. These partnerships enabled him to invest in larger and more complex deals than he would have been able to do on his own.

How Benjamin Graham inspired Warren Buffett

Buffett studied at Columbia University’s Business School under Benjamin Graham, a renowned value investor who would later become his mentor.

Benjamin Graham is considered to be the father of value investing. He began his career in finance in the early 1920s, although he quickly realised that most investors were focused on short-term gains and speculation rather than investing in companies with strong fundamentals, such as robust balance sheets.

With this knowledge, he went on to develop his own investment philosophy, focusing on buying undervalued stocks. He believed buying equities cheaply, holding them for the long term and selling them when the market had realised the value was a great way to make money. Put simply, Graham believed that by carefully analysing a company's financial statements and other fundamental data, he could identify stocks trading at a discount to their true value.

This mentality shaped Warren Buffett's view of the world from a young age.

How Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway

One of his most significant deals was Berkshire Hathaway. When Buffett first started buying the stock in the late 1950s, the business was a struggling textile manufacturer. He decided to try to buy enough shares in the business to force management to buy him out at a higher price – earning a handsome profit.

Management refused and Buffett lashed out, buying control and kicking the former management out.

Over the next few years, Warren Buffett wrestled with the business. He kept a tight rein on costs and used any excess cash to expand and diversify.

He started building on his empire with the acquisition of two small insurance groups. These companies gave Buffett an edge. Insurers have large portfolios of investments, giving Buffett a lot of flexibility around where and when he could invest. Over the years, the company has continued to acquire other insurance companies, including GEICO and General Re.

Despite these additional investments and diversification, Berkshire’s insurance businesses remain at the core of the group today. Berkshire Hathaway also owns a load of other well-known companies, including the battery brand Duracell and Dairy Queen ice cream parlours. Buffett now has 41 stocks in his Berkshire Hathaway portfolio.

Warren Buffett’s investing style

Buffett is known for his successful investing style. Historically, he has searched for undervalued companies that have a strong foundation and a competitive edge within a specific market. He then invests in these companies for the long term.

As a result, he has made impressive returns. Some of Berkshire Hathaway’s famous investments include Apple, Coca-Cola, American Express, Moody’s and several Japanese trading houses like Mitsubishi.

Looking to the future, Buffett has said he is not keen on the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

According to Motley Fool, Buffett expressed the opinion at the May 2024 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, comparing AI to a genie in a bottle: “It’s partway out of the bottle. We may wish we’d never seen that genie, or it may do wonderful things.”

Buffett is also known for his philanthropic efforts, including his commitment to giving away the majority of his wealth through the Giving Pledge – a commitment by some of the world's wealthiest individuals and families to give away the majority of their wealth to address society's most pressing problems.

We look at how to rival Warren Buffett when it comes to funds and trusts, and how to invest like him.

Who will replace Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway?

At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting on 3 May, the investor announced that he would retire as CEO, in a shock to shareholders and the rest of the world.

Berkshire Hathaway announced that Greg Abel would be appointed as the next president and CEO. The 62-year-old currently serves as the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Energy and the vice-chairman of its non-insurance operations.

In his farewell address, Buffett said: “I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year end.”

However, he insisted he would keep his fortunes invested in the company. “I have no intention – zero – of selling one share of Berkshire Hathaway. I will give it away eventually. “The decision to keep every share is an economic decision because I think the prospects of Berkshire will be better under Greg’s management than mine.”

As per Forbes, the conglomerate’s shares dropped by 5%, taking away more than $30 billion from its market capitalisation. Buffett’s fortunes also shrank by $8.9 billion.

The good news for investors is that Buffett will still serve as the chairman of the board once he retires, Berkshire confirmed on 5 May.

When you think of famous 21st-century pop stars, Rihanna’s name may well spring to mind. The Barbadian singer is one of the best-selling artists of all time and was the youngest self-made billionaire in 2022.

So, just how rich is she? According to Forbes, Rihanna’s net worth is $1 billion. While this doesn’t make her the richest woman in the world, the zeroes in her fortune put her third on the list of the wealthiest musicians, trailing behind Jay-Z and Taylor Swift.

Rihanna hasn’t released any music since 2022, and her last album came out almost a decade ago in 2016, so how has her net worth remained so high? The Work singer’s entrepreneurial side has contributed tremendously to her fortunes, putting her net worth above artists like Ed Sheeran and Selena Gomez.

Rihanna's net worth and her music career

Rihanna was born and raised in Barbados, where she formed a girl group with two classmates at the age of 15. Her talent for singing was quickly picked up by a local music producer named Evan Rogers, who invited her to New York.

The singer’s career took off from there. In New York, Rihanna recorded a series of demo tracks. These impressed the industry and, most importantly, Jay-Z, who signed her to his record label, Def Jam Recordings.

Rihanna’s music stood out for its mix of influences. Featuring a mix of reggae, dancehall and R&B influences, the singer’s music appealed to a wide range of listeners and fans.

It wasn’t long before the young star began to make waves around the world with her records. Debut single, Pon de Replay, was released in 2005 and quickly became a hit, reaching the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Her debut album, Music of the Sun, followed shortly after.

Her third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad, marked a turning point in the singer’s career. The album sold nearly three million copies in the US and over nine million worldwide. She won her first career Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2007 with Umbrella featuring Jay-Z.

She went on to release four more albums between 2009 and 2012, namely Rated R, Loud, Talk That Talk, and Unapologetic.

After a hiatus, she released her eighth album Anti in 2016, which was certified six times platinum, with the ANTI World Tour grossing more than $134 million in ticket sales.

Over the years, Rihanna has sold more than 250 million records. She has won nine Grammys, 12 Billboard Music Awards and six Guinness World Records, among many other awards. She also received the prestigious Vanguard Award, which has been taken home by artists like Madonna, Beyoncé and Michael Jackson.

The singer performed at the 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, which became the third most-watched halftime show ever, according to Billboard. She also performed at Anant Ambani's pre-wedding bash in 2024, which earned her £5 million according to Daily Mail.

How Rihanna's business ventures made her a billionaire

Rihanna is not only a talented musician and actress, but she is also a successful entrepreneur.

She has launched several businesses over the years, including Fenty Beauty, Savage X Fenty, and Fenty Skin.

While Rihanna’s other businesses have helped the star build her wealth, it’s Fenty Beauty that’s been the most successful enterprise. Launched in 2017, Fenty Beauty revolutionised the makeup industry with its then-40-shade foundation line-up (now 50) for all skin tones. It was named one of Time magazine’s best inventions that year, and made a staggering $72 million in sales within its first month.

Since its launch, Fenty has grabbed a large share of the global cosmetics market by appealing to a wide range of skin tones, and heavy use of social media to tap into underrepresented markets. Being owned by LVMH, Rihanna was able to ensure that the brand reached the right audiences, and made a lasting impact.

In 2024, Fenty Beauty was named the top-earning celebrity beauty brand in the world, generated sales of over $600 million in revenue and had a valuation of $2.8 billion.

When will Rihanna release new music?

In February 2025, Rihanna confirmed to Harper's Bazaar that her ninth studio album (or R9) is on the way. She said: “I just cracked the code on what I really want to do for my next body of work. I am actually feeling really good about this. I know I kept saying this over the years.”

There’s no release date as yet, the singer told the magazine: “It has to count. It has to matter. I have to show them the worth in the wait. I cannot put up anything mediocre. After waiting eight years, you might as well just wait some more.”

However, Rihanna is booked and busy with her upcoming movie, Smurfs, for which she recorded the song, Friend Of Mine.

He may be one of the richest people in the world, but Bill Gates’ net worth isn’t as high as it could be – and for good reason. The Microsoft co-founder has donated tens of billions to charity through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gates and his friend Paul Allen founded Microsoft in 1975 at the dawn of the personal computer revolution. They struck gold with the software, turning Microsoft into one of the most influential tech companies.

Though Gates has stepped back from Microsoft’s day-to-day operations, he left an indelible mark on the industry and has turned to more charitable causes.

Still, his stake in Microsoft, along with other investments, places his net worth at a whopping $159 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, making him the world’s eighth richest person.

He often drops in and out of the top ten richest people in the world. Taking the reins above him are Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison and Bernard Arnault.

We look at how Bill Gates managed to build his fortune and the factors that contribute to his net wealth today.

How Bill Gates founded Microsoft

Bill Gates is widely regarded as one of the most successful entrepreneurs in modern history. Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1955. As a youngster, he showed an interest in technology and computers, even though the industry was still in its early stages.

By the age of 13, he’d taught himself how to program his first computer and went on to attend Harvard University. Despite making it into the prestigious university, Gates dropped out after two years to pursue his passion – computers and technology.

Gates co-founded Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend, Paul Allen, and they initially focused on producing software for personal computers.

Their big breakthrough came in 1980. That year, Microsoft signed a deal with IBM to provide the operating system for its new line of personal computers, MS-DOS – a game-changer for Microsoft. It cemented the firm’s position as a major player in the emerging computer industry.

Over the next five years, with the cash from IBM flowing in, Microsoft continued to innovate and expand its product offerings. The first version of Windows, which would become its flagship operating system for personal computers was put on sale in 1985.

In the years that followed, Microsoft released a series of highly successful products, including Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and the Xbox gaming console.

The story behind Bill Gates’ net worth

In 1987, Gates became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire with a net worth of $1.25 billion, according to the Forbes 400 Richest People in America list.

After finding Microsoft, Gates made his first big splurge on a Porsche 911 in 1979, he said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Bill Gates was the world's richest person for several years in a row during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Bill Gates donated his Microsoft shares worth billions to the Gates Foundation trust in 2022. This means Gates now holds around 1% of Microsoft shares, which were worth over $40 billion as of August 2024, according to Investopedia. Adam Levy of The Motley Fool notes that if he had kept his 45% stake from the 1986 IPO listing, he would be worth eight times more today – which would have made him a trillionaire.

Gates has other investments that keep him atop the rich lists. He is the brain behind several companies including BEN, TerraPower and Gates Ventures.

A recent analysis by Business Insider breaks down some of his extensive wealth. Bill Gates launched a $1 billion investment fund Breakthrough Energy in 2016 to invest in the clean energy revolution.

With the help of his private investment firm Cascade, he has made several high-profile investments, such as partial ownership of the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Through it, he also owns the biggest private farmland in the US, which stretches across 275,000 acres, and has had a stake in the Canadian National Railway since 2013.

His property portfolio is just as vast as his wealth – Gates owns at least 12 parcels of land spanning about 10.5 acres in Medina, Washington, called Xanadu 2.0. The estate is home to a 60-foot pool, a $30 million 16th-century Leonardo da Vinci manuscript, and several famous paintings such as Winslow Homer’s Lost on the Grand Banks, which he purchased for $36 million in 1988.

Aside from Xanadu 2.0, he also has a 20-acre estate in Florida valued at around $35 million, which he bought to support his daughter Jennifer Gates Nassar’s passion for equestrianism.

Gates also owns several private jets, and his luxury car collection includes around 23 vehicles, including a Porsche 959.

How Bill Gates donates his wealth

Gates has vowed to give away most of his wealth through the Giving Pledge, which he launched in 2010 with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffet.

The former couple founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve healthcare and fight poverty around the world. According to Forbes, Gates has donated at least $35.8 billion of his Microsoft stake to the foundation, while Buffet has contributed more than $36 billion to it since 2006.

In 2016, Gates invested in Amyris, a synthetic biotechnology company for the development of antimalarial medicine. However, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2023. Gates invested $50 million into Alzheimer’s research in 2017, and another £30 million the next year into the Diagnostics Accelerator.

Other than that, Gates and his ex-wife also pledged $2 billion to fight malaria, more than $50 million against Ebola, and $38 million for a low-cost polio vaccine.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $1.6 billion investment of five years for the international organisation Gavi to deliver lifesaving vaccines to the world’s poorest countries.

An avid traveller, Gates spends his time learning about innovations in different countries. He visited India for Anant Ambani’s pre-wedding bash, where he met with India’s prime minister Narendra Modi about how his foundation can support technology and innovation in India.

The entrepreneur has also announced that he will be publishing a memoir, Source Code, this year, which is set to come out in February. It will give readers an insight into his life as a young entrepreneur in his twenties before he was in the public eye.

Elon Musk is now not only the richest person in the world but also the first and only trillionaire in history.

After SpaceX’s highly anticipated IPO on 12 June, Forbes reported that Musk added $188 billion to his already astronomical wealth. It means that his net worth is now more than that of the four billionaires after him on the Forbes Real Time Billionaires List.

But where exactly did it all start, and how did the South African tycoon add 12 zeroes to his net worth?

We chart how his wealth has grown from his early years of founding what is now PayPal, joining Tesla, and launching SpaceX.

Elon Musk’s net worth over the years

At the time of writing, Elon Musk’s net worth is $1.3 trillion, according to Forbes.

To put that into perspective, Sarah Coles of AJ Bell says: “If you aimed for a trillion pounds and you were starting from scratch, you could put away £500 a month and, with growth at 5% a year and contributions rising 2% a year, it would take around 316 years.”

Musk’s net worth has grown substantially over the past few years, driven largely by his stakes in electric vehicle company Tesla and aerospace firm SpaceX.

He first appeared on Forbes’s World’s Billionaires list in 2012, when he had an estimated fortune of $2 billion, making him the world’s 634th richest person. From then on, it took Musk less than a decade to take the top spot, dethroning Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person in January 2021.

Elon Musk’s early life and career

Musk was born in South Africa on 28 June 1971. From an early age, he showed an interest in technology and innovation.

His first major success came with Zip2, a company that provided online business directories and maps to newsletters. In 1999, Compaq acquired Zip2 for nearly $300 million, paving the way for Musk into the tech industry.

Musk used proceeds from the sale to launch X.com, an online payment platform that eventually evolved into PayPal. In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion. That same year, Musk used $100 million of his own fortune to start SpaceX, aiming to make space exploration more accessible and colonise Mars.

In 2004, Musk joined Tesla Motors and became the company’s CEO four years later. Under his leadership, Tesla emerged as one of the world’s most electric vehicle companies, with a market capitalisation of over $1.12 trillion.

Musk also co-founded solar panel installation firm SolarCity, neurotechnology company Neuralink and tunnel construction firm The Boring Company.

How SpaceX became the largest IPO in history

SpaceX’s meteoric rise to become the world’s largest-ever initial public offering can be attributed to Elon Musk’s larger-than-life public persona, widening interest in investing in space, and rising AI spending by tech megacaps.

On 12 June, shares in the AI and space company began trading on the Nasdaq at $150 per share, raising $75 billion and closing with a market cap of $2.11 trillion.

It makes SpaceX one of the world’s most valuable companies, reaching the milestone in an extremely short timespan.

Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration

Elon Musk’s influence extends far beyond the tech world. He was a prominent supporter of Donald Trump during the 2024 US presidential election, spending over $290 million to get Trump into the White House, according to CNN.

Following Trump’s victory over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, Musk secured a position in his administration, serving as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

DOGE emerged as a means to cut US government spending, which resulted in mass workforce layoffs and controversial cuts to USAID, which is responsible for foreign aid and humanitarian relief. On 28 May 2025, Musk departed from the role to focus on Tesla.

Elon Musk’s property portfolio and car collection

Musk has built up a vast property empire over the years. In 2020, he stated on X that he would sell all his “physical possessions” and “own no house”. At that time, the asking prices for his seven homes were more than $100 million in total, according to Architectural Digest, including a 16,000-square-foot home in Los Angeles, which sold for $29 million.

After shedding his property portfolio, Musk moved into a tiny home in Boca Chica, Texas, close to the SpaceX headquarters. In 2022, he bought a 6,900-square-foot mansion in West Lake Hills, Texas, worth $6 million.

The billionaire has also built his own company town called Starbase, named after his rocket launch site, on the southern tip of Texas. The city covers around 1.6 square miles and is home to some 500 people, according to The Guardian.

The Tesla CEO has a large collection of cars, ranging from a Ford Model T, a 1997 McLaren F1, a Tesla Roadster and the 1976 Lotus Espirit that James Bond drove in the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me. Musk bought it at an auction in 2013 for nearly $1 million, according to the BBC. He also owns private jets, each worth millions of dollars.

How does Elon Musk manage his wealth?

With so many billions to his name, it’s not surprising that Elon Musk has a wealth manager. His fortunes are handled by Excession LLC, a single-family office formed in 2016. It’s run by James Birchall, Musk’s trusted advisor and CEO of Neuralink.

While Musk doesn’t donate his wealth as generously as other billionaires like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, he still gives away billions in shares to charities. He has an organisation called the Musk Foundation, with more than $14 billion in assets. However, The New York Times reported that the charity failed to give away the minimum amount required by law for the fourth year in a row.

Rishi Sunak’s net worth makes him the richest-ever prime minister to have occupied 10 Downing Street.

The former Conservative Party leader and his wife, Akshata Murty, have a personal fortune of £640 million, according to The Sunday Times Rich List 2025.

Their combined wealth puts them within touching distance of some of the richest people in the world, and matches King Charles' net worth, which rose significantly this year.

What is Rishi Sunak’s net worth?

Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty’s combined worth is £640 million, according to The Sunday Times.

Most of it comes from Murty’s shareholdings in Infosys, an Indian IT company founded by her father, N. R. Narayana Murthy (known as the Steve Jobs of India) in 1981. The company’s market capitalisation as of May 2025 is roughly £57 billion.

Murty has a 0.93% stake in the company. In April, Mint reported that Infosys’ share price had fallen over 26% on a year-to-date basis, and shares have declined 30% over the past six months.

The latest annual report suggests that Murty received about £7.5 million in dividends — adding to the £73+ million she has already been paid over the years.

While Murty’s vast fortunes are well-known, her tax affairs have not been quite as transparent. At one point, this “threatened to end Sunak’s chance to lead the country”, according to The Sunday Times. Murty held a non-dom status that meant she could avoid paying UK tax on her Infosys dividends, possibly as much as £20.6 million.

However, she announced she would stop using the special status soon after the fact made headlines during Sunak’s premiership.

Murty’s earnings far exceed those of the former prime minister. In February 2024, Sunak released his financial statements, which showed that he made £2.2 million in 2022-23, of which only 6.5% was his MP and prime ministerial wages.

Other earnings include roughly £1.8 million through capital gains and around £300,000 from interest and dividends, and he paid £508,308 in tax.

The Sunaks have an extensive property portfolio. According to The Sunday Times, their main Kensington mews house is worth £7 million. They also own a flat on Old Brompton Road in Kensington, a £1.5 million Georgian manor house in North Yorkshire, and a £5.5 million penthouse in Santa Monica, California.

Sunak can also take advantage of the Public Duty Costs Allowance, which will allow him to claim financial support of up to £115,000 a year for any administration costs as a result of his position as a former UK prime minister.

What did Rishi Sunak do before he entered politics?

Before entering politics, Sunak worked as an analyst for Goldman Sachs from 2001 to 2004. He then studied for an MBA at Stanford University in California, where he met his now-wife.

Soon after, he moved back to the UK and joined The Children’s Investment Fund Management (TCI), founded by hedge fund billionaire Chris Hohn. In 2006, the year Sunak became a partner, the firm reported profits of £321 million, according to Companies House documents. In the two years leading up to the financial crisis, TCI saw profits nearing £900 million.

After leaving TCI in 2009, Sunak returned to California to work with former colleagues at the new hedge fund firm Theleme Partners. He served as a director at Catamaran Ventures from 2013 to 2015, before becoming an MP for Richmond and Northallerton – a seat he has held since.

What is Rishi Sunak doing now?

Despite losing out to Starmer in the 2024 general election, Rishi Sunak has hung on to his seat as an MP in his constituency of Richmond and Northallerton.

Many speculated that Sunak would return to California after leaving Downing Street. However, he was quick to debunk this claim at the G20 summit, insisting that he aims to remain an MP for the next few years.

Sunak has now taken up two new jobs at his former universities — an unpaid role at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, and a visiting fellowship at the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University.

Meanwhile, Akshata Murty was made a trustee at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

There has been much speculation about King Charles’ net worth and his standing among the richest people in the world.

According to The Sunday Times Rich List 2025, King Charles III has a net worth of £640 million, up by £30 million compared to last year. This ranks him 238th out of 350 of Britain’s richest individuals and families – a jump from 258th last year.

It also means that his fortunes now match the combined net worth of former prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty – and are nearly double that of late Queen Elizabeth II, whose personal wealth was £330 million at the time of her death.

We explore King Charles’ net worth, how much he inherited from his late mother and whether he pays inheritance tax on his vast personal fortune.

King Charles’ net worth explained

In a 2023 investigation by The Guardian, the King’s private wealth was estimated to be around £1.815 billion, which is three times higher than The Sunday Times’ calculation. This valuation included his royal holdings worth £330 million, royal vehicles valued at £6.3 million, art, private jewels estimated at £533 million, the late Queen’s inheritance and investments in stocks and shares worth around £142 million.

However, Robert Watts from The Sunday Times reasons that “these estates come with the job as sovereign and there are rules circumscribing a monarch’s ability to sell or profit from them”.

The largest is the Crown Estate, with a property portfolio of £16 billion, including Regent Street, Ascot racecourse and virtually the entire UK seabed up to 12 miles from the coast.

King Charles currently receives 12% of the Crown Estate’s annual profits as a Sovereign Grant, which essentially funds the royal family’s official duties and running costs and is provided by the HM Treasury. According to royal accounts, he received record profits of £1.1 billion in 2023-24, and is set to receive £132 million this financial year.

His most valuable assets are Sandringham in Norfolk and Balmoral in Aberdeenshire, which are valued at about £250 million and £210 million respectively. According to The Sunday Times, an “entirely legal quirk” makes any assets passed on from “sovereign to sovereign” free of inheritance tax. This was introduced by Sir John Major in 1993 when he was the UK’s prime minister.

Last year, an investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme uncovered every plot of land owned by the King and Prince William through the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall.

It found that the duchies were making millions every year by charging on land holdings which include 37 commercial properties, 2,682 mining-related sites, ten schools, an NHS warehouse and a prison.

As per the investigation, the NHS owes the King’s duchy £11 million over 15 years for renting a warehouse that stores ambulances, £1.5 million from the Dartmoor prison – paid by the Ministry of Justice, and around £17.6 million from commercial properties over the past decade in London, Milton Keynes and Cornwall.

King Charles has also inherited a substantial personal fortune through his mother, although her will remains private until 2112, so we’re highly unlikely to witness the unveiling. However, the portfolio of blue-chip shares and bonds is estimated to be worth £125 million, while all the late Queen’s horses could fetch at least £27 million.

How much tax does King Charles pay?

We don’t know how much tax King Charles pays. Legally, the monarch is not obliged to pay any taxes at all. However, the Queen began to pay income and capital gains tax on a “voluntary basis” in 1993, following years of growing disquiet about the blanket exemption.

King Charles has let it be known that he intends to do the same, and in the past, he has voluntarily paid tax on income from the Duchy of Cornwall.

Under the same agreement, brokered by John Major’s government, the monarch pays income tax on revenues from the Duchy of Lancaster, and there is no inheritance tax payable on any assets passed from the Queen to her son and successor. If she has left private wealth to other members of her family – as is likely – those assets will be subject to inheritance tax.