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 $1.1 trillion.
Despite substantial wealth, Larry Page and Warren Buffett don’t make the top five richest people in the world. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift's billion-dollar Eras Tour didn’t make the singer the richest woman in the world.
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 grew more than $500 billion in 2024, with their combined net worth just over $2 trillion at the end of the year.
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However, due to Trump’s tariffs and political uncertainty, many billionaires have seen their fortunes drop. According to Bloomberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg and Bernard Arnault have collectively lost $209 billion since Trump took office.
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 $320 billion according to Bloomberg. Forbes puts his fortunes at $335.2 billion.
The second-richest billionaire, Jeff Bezos, is worth nearly $102 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 has been appointed to the White House under Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency. Tesla’s sales in Europe nosedived more than 45% year-on-year in January, with reports suggesting Elon Musk’s recent political decisions could be partly to blame.
Get an in-depth insight into Elon Musk’s net worth and find out how he created Tesla.
2. Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $218 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. Now, the empire has a market capitalisation of £1.809 trillion.
Bezos also owns The Washington Post, one of the largest newspapers in the United States. He has a stake in Blue Origin, a space exploration company he founded in 2000, which is set to launch singer Katy Perry, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, and a few others into space as part of an all-female crew.
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 $214 billion, according to Bloomberg. 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.
In 2024, Zuckerberg’s fortunes went up by 70%, adding around $72 billion to his net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. However, he recently dropped to third place on the richest person in the world list.
Read more on how Facebook became Meta, and Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth.
4. 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.
Arnault was a young entrepreneur who inherited his father's construction company, Ferret-Savinel, 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.
Arnault has a net worth of $177 billion according to Bloomberg. His wealth has taken a tumble of nearly 3%, and he has lost as much as $5 billion since Trump’s second term as US president began, NSS magazine reports.
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.
5. Larry Ellison
Larry 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.
The Oracle software is now used by big names including JPMorgan Chase, Netflix and UnitedHealth Group, as per Thomson Data. The entrepreneur owns around 42% of Oracle, totalling more than 1.1 billion shares.
Ellison’s net worth is $169 billion. According to Business Insider, the billionaire’s fortunes rose by more than $67 billion in 2024, putting him ahead of Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates.
Read more on Larry Ellison’s net worth and how he makes the rest of his billions away from Oracle.
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