The 500 Richest People on the Planet Were Worth a Combined $10 Trillion This Year

December 31, 2024

Elon MuskAnna Moneymaker/Getty Images

For the most part, the rich just keep getting richer.

The 500 wealthiest people on the planet hit a record combined net worth of $10 trillion in 2024, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. The gains were helped along by the strength of tech stocks in the United States, as well as by Donald Trump’s election in November. The biggest winner by far was Elon Musk, who saw his fortune reach $442.1 billion, an increase of $213 billion since the beginning of the year.

Along with Musk, a whole host of men in the tech space benefitted this year: Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin. Those eight men made more than $600 billion, accounting for 43 percent of the $1.5 trillion increase among the world’s richest people, Bloomberg noted. Still, Musk leads the pack, with the $237 billion difference between him and Bezos, the world’s second-richest person, on December 17 being the biggest ever recorded between the first- and second-ranked people on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Other winners when it comes to net worth this year include Chinese billionaires like Pony Ma, Lei Jun, and Chen Tianshi. By adding 14 percent to their combined fortunes, they gained money for the first time in three years, Bloomberg noted. And billionaires under the age of 60—who make up 27 percent of Bloomberg’s list—increased their wealth more than twice as much as older billionaires.

While there are certainly a lot of winners, there were also a number of losers this year when it comes to money. As we reported earlier, French billionaires in the luxury space lost a great deal of their wealth in 2024, as the luxury market slowed down. Bernard Arnault, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, and François Pinault lost a combined $71 billion. Elsewhere, Colin Huang went from being China’s richest person in August to losing $18 billion throughout the year. And Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas lost more than half of his net worth in a single day.

Still, all in all, the world’s billionaires had a relatively healthy 2024, hitting that high of $10.1 trillion on December 11. As of Monday evening, the cumulative number sat slightly lower, at $9.8 trillion. They’ll just have to wait and see what 2025 has in store.

 

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