The world’s 500 richest people got vastly richer in 2024, with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang leading the group of billionaires to a new milestone: A combined $10 trillion net worth.An indomitable rally in US technology stocks played a key role in turbocharging the trio’s wealth, as well as the fortunes of Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
The eight tech titans alone gained more than $600 billion this year, 43% of the $1.5 trillion increase among the 500 richest people tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Donald Trump: The president-elect’s fortune soared to record highs this year, boosted by the performance of his majority stake in Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. Despite reporting a $19.2 million loss last quarter, DJT, as the social-media company is known, gained 95% this year, to a current market value of over $7 billion.
Jensen Huang: Nvidia CEO Huang has been one of the biggest individual winners of the AI boom so far, adding $76 billion to his net worth this year. Nvidia’s stock nearly tripled in 2024, and it became the world’s most valuable company for the first time in June.
Mark Zuckerberg: Despite a blockbuster $841 million antitrust ne from the EU and early-year hesitation from investors about the company’s multibillion-dollar AI push, the Meta CEO added $81 billion to his net worth this year as Meta stock gained nearly 70%.
But it was Musk — the so-called “first buddy” of President-elect Donald Trump after unprecedented support for his re-election campaign — who dominated the world’s wealthiest in 2024. His close relationship with the incoming president helped increase the value of his companies, including Tesla Inc., SpaceX and xAI. That boosted his fortune to an unprecedented $442.1 billion, up $213 billion from the beginning of the year. The $237 billion gap between him and Bezos on Dec. 17 was the largest ever recorded between the rst- and second-ranked names on Bloomberg’s wealth index.
Chinese billionaires: Chinese billionaires, including Tencent Holdings Ltd. CEO Pony Ma, Xiaomi Corp. Chairman Lei Jun and Cambricon Technologies Corp. co-founder Chen Tianshi, added 14% to their fortunes in 2024. Their gains reversed three straight years of losses spurred by an ongoing property crisis and government clampdowns on powerful tech rms.
Billionaires under age 60: The younger billionaires on the list grew their wealth more than twice as much as their older counterparts this year. Billionaires under 60 make up 27% of the index.
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