Who are the 10 richest people in the world in 2025?

Elon Musk’s status as the world’s wealthiest man remains unchallenged as he continues to sit atop the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

In the first half of 2025, Musk was able to capitalise on his close relationship with the newly reelected Donald Trump, a friendship that earned him the nickname “the First Buddy”. One of a host of billionaires or centi-millionaires Trump tapped for top positions, he was appointed to oversee the non-governmental Department of Government Efficiency.

Relations between the two men quickly soured, culminating in Musk’s departure from Doge amid a social media war of words, but the Tesla owner has held on to the status of the world’s wealthiest person. With an estimated net worth of $462 billion, he is more than $100 billion ahead of his closest rival.

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Last year, the US Institute for Policy Studies think tank warned of the emergence of an “oligarchic” elite, “endowed with extreme material power that can be used to pursue narrow political interests at the expense of democratic majorities”. Its analysis estimated that the 12 richest men in the US are now worth more than a collective $2 trillion.

1. Elon Musk: $462 billion

Elon Musk is known as the eccentric and outspoken chief executive of electric car giant Tesla, founder and CEO of SpaceX, owner of social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and prominent backer of Donald Trump during the president’s re-election campaign. In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s victory, Tesla’s market cap rose to an estimated $1.29 trillion. Musk’s visible role in the administration sparked a backlash among Trump’s opponents, with a knock-on effect on Tesla sales in the US and beyond. Since Musk’s departure from politics, Tesla’s value has soared again and, on 1 October, Musk briefly became the world’s first half-trillionaire. The Tesla board has said that if the CEO meets a series of targets over the next decade, he stands to take home a pay package worth more than $1 trillion.

2. Larry Ellison: $340 billion

American business magnate Larry Ellison is co-founder, chairman and chief technology officer of Oracle, which he started in 1977. The 81-year-old stepped down as CEO in 2017 but remains the software giant’s chief technology officer and executive chair, as well as owning around 35% of the company. Oracle’s central role in developing AI infrastructure has catapulted Ellison into second place in the 2025 rich list. For one day in September, he surpassed Musk, briefly, to hold the title of world’s richest person.

A longtime Republican donor, Ellison has made the most of his ties to Trump, who has called him “an amazing man and amazing business person”. Oracle is part of a consortium tapped to take over a minority stake in TikTok’s US operations. Asked about the future of TikTok, Trump did not hesitate to answer: “I’d like Larry to buy it.”

3. Mark Zuckerberg: $258 billion

Mark Zuckerberg famously dropped out of Harvard to pursue his dream of starting social media site Facebook, which now boasts nearly three billion users worldwide. He remains CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, with a 13% stake. This year, Meta has ramped up its efforts to develop and monetise AI operations within its platforms. Despite heavy investment in its AI capabilities, Meta’s revenue, said IG, “exceeded analyst expectations in the second quarter” – figures that “reinforced confidence in the company's AI-driven strategy” among investors.

4. Jeff Bezos: $244 billion

Former hedge fund manager Jeff Bezos started Amazon in his garage in 1994, growing it into one of the most profitable companies in the world. He has invested heavily in space technology too, having founded Blue Origin as a “pet project” back in 2000. After stepping down as Amazon CEO he took on the new role of executive chair.

In May, Amazon notified the US Securities and Exchange Commission that Bezos planned to sell up to 25 million shares in the company, with a value estimated at $5 billion. A similar filing was made in August for another 25 million in potential sell-offs. In October, it was revealed that Bezos’ ownership stake in Amazon has fallen below 10% for the first time in the company’s history.

5. Larry Page: $221 billion

Internet entrepreneur Larry Page is one of the co-founders of Google, which he started while a PhD student at Stanford in 1998. He stepped down as CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc in December 2019 but remains a board member and retains a stake of around 6% in the company. However, Page and co-founder Sergey Brin collectively own 51% of Alphabet’s class B shares, which are not publicly traded and come with enhanced voting power, making them controlling shareholders.

In March 2025, it was reported that Page had founded a start-up called Dynatomics, which “explores ways to use AI and additive manufacturing to build aircraft”, said Business Insider.

6. Sergey Brin: $207 billion

Google co-founder, with Stanford classmate Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and his family, left the Soviet Union for the US when he was six to escape antisemitism. He served as head of technology from 2001 to 2011 before transitioning to the role of “director of special projects". He was president of Alphabet Inc until December 2019 and, like Page, remains a board member and a controlling shareholder through his ownership of powerful class B shares in Alphabet.

At the All-In tech summit in Miami in May, Brin said that he had come out of retirement to work on Google’s Gemini AI chatbot, calling the experience “some of the most fun I’ve had in my life”.

7. Bernard Arnault: $197 billion

When it comes to “the world of luxury goods”, perhaps no one is “more successful” than Bernard Arnault, said Business Insider. The Frenchman oversees the LVMH empire of more than 70 brands, including Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon, TAG Heuer, Christian Dior and Dom Pérignon. LVMH had been feeling the pinch in 2025 as the rising cost of living and tariff anxieties led to a fall in demand for luxury goods, but things turned around in October when the business reported its “first period of growth since the start of its fiscal year”, said Fortune.

Overnight, Arnault’s personal net worth soared by $19 billion.

8. Steve Ballmer: $179 billion

Former CEO of Microsoft Steve Ballmer led the tech giant from 2000 to 2014, having joined as one of its first employees in 1980. By the time he stepped down a decade ago he was believed to have around a 4% stake in the company, which in 2024 would net him an estimated dividend “just shy of $1 billion”, said CNN. Ballmer is better known to sports fans as the current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.

9. Jensen Huang: $158 billion

In 1993, Taiwanese-American entrepreneur Huang co-founded semiconductor firm Nvidia, which went public in 1999. Initially serving the video game industry, in recent years the company’s powerful chips have become central to the global AI boom. In July, Nvidia became the first US company to reach a market value of more than $4 trillion. This success has propelled Huang, who retains around a 3.5% stake in Nvidia and draws a pay package of around $50 million as its CEO, into the list of the world’s 10 wealthiest people.

10. Michael Dell: $156 billion

The tycoon made his name in the 1980s as the founder and CEO of Dell Inc., pioneering the manufacture of affordable mass-market PCs. In 2016, the firm merged with EMC Corporation to become Dell Technologies, with Dell himself said to still have around a stake of around 40%. Stock in the firm “has skyrocketed 32% in the past year alone thanks to the increasing importance of the infrastructure services it provides to customers like OpenAI”, said Fortune.