Who is the richest person in the world?

The rivalry never ends among billionaires striving for the top spot on the richest person in the world list.

While one person has consistently held the top spot for almost a year – Tesla’s CEO and SpaceX co-founder, Elon Musk – he was briefly toppled by Oracle’s Larry Ellison on 10 September.

Even though the title holder changes regularly, so does the combined net worth of the five richest people in the world – currently more than a staggering $1.5 trillion.

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We explore the wealth of the five richest people in the world, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.

We reveal the richest woman in the world in a separate guide.

The richest person in the world

1. Elon Musk  

Multi-billionaire Elon Musk is the richest person in the world. Currently, Musk’s net worth is $429 billion, according to Bloomberg. Forbes puts his fortune at just over $471 billion. So far, Bloomberg reports that Musk has lost $13.8 billion year-to-date.

The South African entrepreneur is the face behind several tech businesses, including Tesla, SpaceX and X – formerly Twitter. He owns about 13% of the electric vehicle maker, 42% of SpaceX and 33% of XAI Corp, an AI company.

Musk was also appointed to Donald Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency, but he left the Trump administration in May 2025 after a public clash with the US president over the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’.

Get an in-depth insight into Elon Musk’s net worth in a separate guide.

2. 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 $360 billion, and has surged by 81% or a staggering $157 billion year-to-date, as per Bloomberg.

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, 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.

3. Mark Zuckerberg 

Mark Zuckerberg is the innovator behind Meta Platforms, previously Facebook. He owns the world’s most popular social media channels – Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp.

Zuckerberg’s net worth is $269 billion, according to Bloomberg. He has a 13% stake in Meta, and the platform has about 3.4 billion daily users, as per a January 2025 company presentation.

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.

He has pledged to give away 99% of his stock to philanthropic causes, and the majority of his wealth, too.

Read more on how Facebook became Meta, and Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth.

4. Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $253 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 $2.43 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 launched his now-wife Lauren Sánchez, singer Katy Perry, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, and three others into space as part of an all-female crew.

It’s been a busy year for Bezos. In July this year, he married Lauren Sánchez in Venice, which cost at least $20–$25 million, according to Forbes. Reuters places the figures between $47–$56 million.

Moreover, Amazon revealed in February 2025 that it had taken creative control of the James Bond franchise, being directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Denis Villeneuve of Dune and Blade Runner 2049 fame.

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

5.  Larry Page

A new entry to the top five list is Larry Page, who co-founded Alphabet – the parent company of Google. Page has a net worth of $220 billion, according to Bloomberg.

A majority of his wealth comes from his stake in Google. After launching in 1998 and going public in 2004, Google became the world’s largest search engine. It rebranded as Alphabet in 2015, which grouped all its divisions – including Gmail, Android and YouTube – under one umbrella.

On 15 September, Alphabet became the fourth company to reach a market capitalisation of $3 trillion. The boost comes after a US federal judge ruled that Google would not be forced to sell its Chrome browser in a landmark monopoly case.

Find out more about Larry Page's net worth.