The wealth of the world’s 500 richest people has surpassed a staggering $10 trillion (around £8 trillion) for the first time.
The milestone represents a $1.5 trillion (around £1.2 trillion) increase in the last 12 months alone, with some of the biggest names in tech like Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang and Larry Ellison adding billions to their net worth.
Telsa and X owner Elon Musk, who was already the world’s richest person, saw the biggest bounce, which accounted for over 13% of the total wealth spike among the richest billionaires.
The four tech titans, as well as Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin saw their fortunes grow by $600 billion (around £478.1billion) in total this year.
This bank balance boost represented 43% of the total increase among the 500 wealthiest, as per Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
The total value of the fortunes tracked on the index was $9.8 trillion (£7.8 trillion) at Monday’s close, a slight decrease on the peak of $10.1 trillion (over £8 trillion) seen on December 11.
Musk has been mockingly called the “first buddy” of President-elect Donald Trump after putting his support behind the Republican’s campaign for a second term, and being appointed to a government cost-cutting role.
His close association with Trump, who will be inaugurated as Commander-in-Chief later this month, helped increase the already sizable value of his various companies, which also include xAi and SpaceX.
That is thought to have played a key role in boosting his wealth to a record $442.1 billion (£3.3billion), more than double his estimated $213 billion (£169billion) net worth at the start of 2024.
On December 17 he was estimated to be $237 billion (around £189billion) richer than Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, marking the biggest gap between the first and second richest on Bloomberg’s wealth index, according to the outlet.
Musk’s net worth is currently estimated to be around $437 billion (£348.2 billion), about 1.6% of the United State’s GDP, as per Forbes.
The world’s wealthiest benefited as the stock market defied expectations in 2024, with Trump’s win in the Presidential election adding further gains, as per Bloomberg.
A historic rally for digital assets also followed Trump’s victory at the ballot box, with Bitcoin making an unprecedented rise above $100,000 (£79,692.50).
It brought a major boost for crypto billionaires like Binance Holdings’ CEO Changpeng Zhaosaw and Coinbase Global Inc. co-founder Brian Armstrong who saw their wealth rise to $55 billion (£43.8billion) and $11.1 billion (£8.8billion) – increases of 60% and 50% respectively.
