World's Richest See Wealth Surpass $10 Trillion for First Time, Musk Sees Biggest Increase

The Wealth of the World's Richest Surpasses $10 Trillion

The combined wealth of the world's 500 richest people has surpassed a staggering $10 trillion for the first time. This represents a $1.5 trillion increase in the last 12 months alone, with some of the biggest names in tech seeing significant gains.

Elon Musk, already the world's richest person, saw the biggest increase in wealth, accounting for over 13% of the total wealth spike among the richest billionaires. Other tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin also saw their fortunes grow significantly this year.

The total value of the fortunes tracked on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index was $9.8 trillion at Monday's close, a slight decrease from the peak of $10.1 trillion seen on December 11.

Musk's Wealth Soars

Elon Musk's close association with President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated as Commander-in-Chief later this month, helped increase the value of his various companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, and xAi. This is thought to have played a key role in boosting his wealth to a record $442.1 billion, more than double his estimated net worth at the start of 2024.

Musk's net worth is currently estimated to be around $437 billion, about 1.6% of the United States' GDP.

Stock Market and Crypto Rally Benefit the Wealthiest

The world's wealthiest benefited as the stock market defied expectations in 2024, with Trump's win in the Presidential election adding further gains. A historic rally for digital assets also followed Trump's victory, with Bitcoin making an unprecedented rise above $100,000. This brought a major boost for crypto billionaires like Binance Holdings' CEO Changpeng Zhao and Coinbase Global Inc. co-founder Brian Armstrong.