Only a few people have made unbelievable wealth in an ambitious and entrepreneurial society. These visionary and innovative CEOs have become the world’s richest. It’s no easy accomplishment.
After all, the wealth of the top 10 richest people exceeds several countries’ GDP. They make most of their money in technology, banking, and retail. The widening wealth gap between them and the poor worries people globally.
This article reveals the top 10 richest people in the world and their outstanding achievements, entrepreneurial skills, and global economic impact.
1. Elon Musk
Musk runs Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter. His stock and options total 23% of Tesla’s total, and he has pledged part of it as security for loans.
About two-thirds of his wealth comes from the car firm. He purchased X, then Twitter, for $44 billion in October 2022. He controls 74% of the social media business, worth less than half his spending.
From South Africa, Musk came to Canada before his 18th birthday, did several jobs, enrolled at Queen’s University in Ontario, and then transferred to Penn to receive a bachelor’s degree in economics.
He established PayPal in 2000 by merging X.com, an online bank he cofounded, with Peter Thiel’s PayPal, which eBay purchased for $1.4 billion in 2002. Near Los Angeles, in El Segundo, he established SpaceX in 2002.
A year after Tesla was created, he became an investor and chairman in 2004 and cofounder in 2005. Tesla went public in 2010 under CEO Musk, who joined in 2008.
Its market cap rose in 2020 and 2021. Musk was the wealthiest in September 2021.
His wealth reaches its max at $320 billion in November 2021. Musk remained the world’s wealthiest person until December 2022, when Tesla’s share price fell.
Musk regained the world’s wealthiest person title on June 8, 2023, and kept it for the rest of the year. Tesla share prices jumped 4% in December, boosting Musk’s wealth by $6 billion.
- $215 billion net worth
2. Jeff Bezos
After leaving D.E. Shaw, Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com in a Seattle garage in 1994. He offered an online bookshop to his old employer, David E. Shaw, who declined.
Amazon once sold books, but it now sells everything. It is predicted to surpass Walmart as the world’s biggest retailer by 2024. Amazon’s 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods and pharmacy entry show its continual diversification.
In 2019, Bezos controlled 16% of Amazon before handing 4% to his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, as part of their divorce. Amazon’s share price rose 76% in 2020 because of COVID-19-related online purchasing demand. After leaving as CEO, Bezos became Amazon’s executive chair on July 5, 2021.
After taking Amazon public in 1997, Bezos became the first person worth over $100 billion since Bill Gates in 1999. The Long Now, Blue Origin, and The Washington Post (which Bezos bought in 2013) are among his other initiatives.
Blue Origin’s first crewed flight of more than 66 miles was achieved by Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and Dutch student Oliver Daemen on July 20, 2021. In the same month, Bezos’ fortune reached $213 billion. His $500 million superyacht Koru was purchased in 2023 and he became one of the richest people in the world.
- Net worth: $199 billion
3. Bernard Arnault
Frenchman Bernard Arnault is the CEO of LVMH, the world’s biggest luxury goods corporation. LVMH have brands like Louis Vuitton, Hennessey, Marc Jacobs, and Sephora.
The holding firm that owns 41.4% of LVMH, Christian Dior SE, is Arnault’s biggest wealth source. His family-owned holding business, Groupe Familial Arnault, owns Christian Dior SE and 6.2% of LVMH.
Arnault initially displayed his commercial ability as an engineer at Ferret-Savinel, his father’s construction firm, before taking over in 1971. He turned Ferret-Savinel into Férinel Inc., the real estate firm, in 1979.
After six more years as Férinel’s chair, Arnault bought and reformed Financière Agache in 1984, selling all its properties save Christian Dior and Le Bon Marché. Two years after investing in LVMH in 1987, he became its majority shareholder, board chair, and CEO and he became one of the richest people in the world.
- Net worth: $198 billion
4. Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg co-founded Facebook—now Meta Platforms—in 2004 as a Harvard undergraduate. It now has 3.88 billion monthly users, making it the biggest social network.
After acquiring and expanding Instagram and WhatsApp, the corporation owns both. Meta CEO Zuckerberg took the firm public in 2012 and owns 13%.
He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, would donate 99% of his firm equity to “measures that promote human potential.”
Zuckerberg and Chan told Forbes earlier this year that they are investing in technologies to cure, treat, or prevent all illnesses by the end of the century.
Zuckerberg told Forbes in September about Meta’s two greatest investments before its 20th anniversary.
Meta’s stock price gain in the summer of 2023 put Zuckerberg back in the top 10 richest people for the first time since January 2022. His wealth surged $9.4 billion in December, while Meta’s shares jumped 9% and he became one of the richest people in the world.
- Net Worth: $171 billion
5. Bill Gates
Bill Gates worked with his teenage years buddy Paul Allen to create microcomputer software in 1975 while at Harvard University. After this project’s success, Gates left Harvard in his junior year and created Microsoft with Allen.
The world’s biggest software firm, Microsoft, manufactures personal computers, distributes video gaming consoles and accessories, and offers email services via its exchange server. It recently invested considerably in cloud services.
Gates became board chair in 2008 from CEO. Berkshire Hathaway added him to its board in 2004. He quit from both boards on March 13, 2020.
Gates’s wealth is mostly in Cascade Investment LLC. Cascade is a private investment company that owns Canadian National Railway (CNR), Deere (D.E.), Republic Services (RSG), and real estate and energy businesses.
$149 billion net worth
6. Steve Ballmer
Microsoft hired Steve Ballmer in 1980 after Bill Gates urged him to leave out of Stanford’s MBA program. Microsoft’s 30th hire. Ballmer becomes the Microsoft CEO in 2000 after Gates. His term ended in 2014. Ballmer handled Microsoft’s $8.5 billion 2011 Skype acquisition.
Microsoft’s top shareholder is Ballmer, who owns 4%. After leaving Microsoft, Ballmer bought the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion in 2014.
Bill Gates and Ballmer shared a Harvard dorm and floor. When Ballmer became CEO and pushed the tech business into devices like the Surface tablet and Windows phone, their sibling connection soured.
- Net worth: $143 billion
7. Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha,” is a master of investors. Berkshire Hathaway controls dozens of firms, including Geico, Duracell, and Dairy Queen.
The son of a U.S. congressman, he purchased shares at 11 and filed taxes at 13.
Buffett, Bill Gates, and Melinda French Gates developed the Giving Pledge in 2010 to encourage billionaires to donate half their wealth to charity. Buffett pledged 99% of his money.
At least $51.5 billion in Berkshire Hathaway shares has gone to the Gates Foundation and his kids’ charities. That makes him the world’s most giving billionaire.
Buffett handed out $4.6 billion in Berkshire Hathaway shares in mid-June. His wealth declined by $700 million in December 2023 due to a minor dip in Berkshire Hathaway shares.
- Net worth: $135 billion
8. Larry Ellison
A 19-year-old single woman gave birth to Larry Ellison in NYC. Ellison became a computer programmer in California after graduating from Chicago in 1966. He met future partners Ed Oates and Bob Miner at Ampex in 1973. Ellison became Precision Instruments’ R&D vice president three years later.
Ellison, Oates, and Miner created Software Development Laboratories in 1977. Oracle, the first commercial relational database application to utilize Structured Query Language, was introduced two years later. The database application was so successful that SDL became Oracle Systems Corporation in 1982. Ellison left Oracle as CEO in 2014 after 37 years. He joined Tesla’s board in December 2018 and left in June 2022.
Oracle, the second-largest software firm, offers cloud computing programs, Java and Linux code, and the Oracle Exadata platform. Oracle has bought several big firms, including Sun Microsystems and Cerner.
Ellison donates to medical research. He donated $200 million to USC for a cancer research facility 2016. Ellison funded Oracle Team USA, which won the 2010 and 2013 America’s Cup.
- Net worth: $127 billion
9. Larry Page
Like many software millionaires, Larry Page started his career in a college dorm room. Page and his buddy Sergey Brin proposed improved Internet data extraction in 1995 at Stanford University. The pair created Backrub, a search engine that evaluates page linkages.
From there, Page and Brin founded Google in 1998, with Page as CEO until 2001 and 2011–2019.6768
Google handles almost 92% of worldwide Internet searches. The business bought YouTube, the leading user-submitted video site, in 2006.6970
After purchasing Android in 2005, Google launched Android in 2008. Google became an Alphabet subsidiary in 2015.
Page was an early investor in Planetary Resources, a space exploration and asteroid-mining corporation. Due to financial issues, ConsenSys purchased the 2009-founded startup in 2018. He also invested in flying vehicle businesses Kitty Hawk and Opener, which closed in 2022.
- Net worth: $126 billion
10. Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin resigned as Alphabet’s president in December 2019, although he remains a significant shareholder and board member.
He and Larry Page met at Stanford University while studying computer science for further degrees and cofounded Google in 1998.
Brin, the richest people in America, moved from Russia with his family at six years old to avoid anti-Semitism. Alphabet shares rose roughly 6% in December 2023, boosting its worth by $5.1 billion.
With a focus on fundamental science, Brin has contributed more than $1.1 billion to Parkinson’s disease research since disclosing his elevated risk more than a decade ago.
- Net worth: $120 billion
Conclusion
You may need to become a digital pioneer or luxury retail maestro to reach the richest billionaires list. Avoid complexity and concentrate on value investment.
It wouldn’t hurt to be born richest, but the biggest fortunes on this list began with solid ideas that creative, driven, and connected people utilized to develop some of the world’s largest enterprises.
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