The rivalry never ends among billionaires striving for the top spot on the richest person in the world list. The title holder changes regularly as does the combined net worth of the five richest people in the world – currently a staggering $1.3 trillion.
Despite substantial wealth, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Taylor Swift don’t make the top five richest people in the world, nor does Selena Gomez who recently joined the billionaire’s club.
Our list is based on Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, which provides a daily ranking based on market and economic changes. The wealth of the top ten on the rich list increased by nearly $64 million after Donald Trump’s US election victory – the largest daily increase since Bloomberg began its index in 2012.
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Some of the billionaires on this list were also spotted at Anant Ambani's (the son of Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani) wedding festivities in July, where he married Radhika Merchant.
The list differs from The Sunday Times Rich List 2024, where Gopi Hinduja and family have taken the top spot with a net worth of £37 billion. The UK’s former prime minister Rishi Sunak has also made this list, ranking 20 places higher compared to 2023.
Here’s the lowdown of the five richest people in the world.
The richest person in the world
1. Elon Musk
Multi-billionaire Elon Musk has been named the richest person in the world. Currently, Musk’s net worth is $447 billion according to Bloomberg. To put it in perspective, Musk’s net worth is equivalent to the value of the global space economy in 2020, according to the Space Report 2021 Q2. Forbes puts his fortunes at $433 billion.
The second-richest billionaire is worth nearly $198 billion less than Musk, which puts the tycoon comfortably above anyone else on the list.
The entrepreneur is the face behind several tech businesses, including Tesla, SpaceX and ‘X,’ formerly known as Twitter. He acquired a 9.2% stake in the social media company in 2022, making him the largest shareholder.
Musk is set to sit in the White House alongside Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk still isn’t entitled to receive a $56 billion compensation package from Tesla, despite shareholder approval. His pay deal was rejected for the second time recently by a US judge, stating that the electric vehicle giant’s board members were too heavily influenced by the billionaire.
Get an in-depth look into Elon Musk’s net worth and find out how he created Tesla.
2. Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos takes second place as the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $249 billion. The billionaire is most famous for founding Amazon in 1994. It all started when Bezos saw a gap in the market for e-commerce and began to sell books online, working out of his garage.
Due to his commitment to good customer service and savvy marketing, Amazon was publicly listed in 1997, which acted as the catalyst for Bezos’s billionaire title. Now, Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer, offering a great deal of products, from vacuum cleaners to clothes. In July, Amazon stocks hit a record high, which pushed Bezos to sell 25 million shares worth $5 billion for the first time since 2021.
Bezos owns The Washington Post, one of the largest newspapers in the United States. According to the Mail, he’s also a contender to buy the NFL team the New York Jets, valued at $6.9 billion.
Find out more about the factors that contributed to Jeff Bezos’ net worth.
3. Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg is the innovator behind the world’s most popular social media channels – Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp.
Zuckerberg’s net worth is $224 billion. Most of his wealth comes from acquisitions such as Instagram (bought for $1 billion) and WhatsApp, purchased for $19 billion. Threads, a competitor to ‘X’, is the latest addition to Zuckerberg’s social network portfolio.
On 6 December, Meta stocks hit a new 52-week high of $629.79, while its shares gained 80% this year. According to CNBC, this has pushed Meta’s market cap close to $1.6 trillion, and has also significantly boosted Zuckerberg’s net worth.
Read more on how Facebook became Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth and his rivalry with Elon Musk.
4. Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison is back in the top five, bumping Bill Gates from the list. Ellison is the man behind one of the world’s largest software companies, Oracle, which he founded in 1977.
When Ellison launched Oracle, it took the world by storm and was favoured by many businesses due to its speed and efficiency. It became a top competitor among the likes of Intel, Microsoft and IBM. In fact, the Oracle software is now used by big names including Coca-Cola, Netflix and Zoom. The entrepreneur owns around 42% of Oracle, totalling more than 1.1 billion shares.
Ellison’s net worth is $198 billion. According to Forbes, his net worth recently dropped by $15 billion after the company’s stock suffered its worst loss in almost a year. However, many analysts believe that Oracle’s cloud business is likely to fuel its growth, after the company signed agreements with Meta to use its cloud infrastructure.
Read more on Larry Ellison’s net worth and how he makes the rest of his billions away from Oracle.
5. Bernard Arnault
Bernard Arnault’s luxury empire has made him billions, so it's no surprise that he currently ranks in the top five richest people in the world. The businessman is one of the largest shareholders of LVMH – a company that owns luxury brands including Louis Vuitton and Dior.
He has a net worth of $181 billion according to the Bloomberg Index. Arnault was a young entrepreneur who inherited his father's construction company in 1971. He sold this company and used the money to fund the acquisition of the Christian Dior company in 1985. Arnault merged several luxury goods brands under one roof, deciding that even premium brands could benefit from economies of scale. These names now sit under the parent company, LVMH.
Fortune reported LVMH suffered a 20% fall in stock price in September, but it bounced back the following month after China’s stimulus package. LVMH heavily relies on the Asian economy for its sales.
Read more on Bernard Arnault’s net worth, and how China’s economy played a big role in the transformation of the luxury goods sector.
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