Forbes has recently published its annual list of billionaires across the world. A record number of 3,028 people are featured in its rankings this year, 247 more than last year. This is the first time the billionaire population has exceeded 3,000. Together, they own a record fortune of $16.1 trillion, $2 trillion more than a year ago. This figure is higher than the GDP of all countries in the world, except for the United States and China. Discover the 12 figures at the top of the rankings!
#12 - Jim Walton (109 B$)
Jim Walton is the youngest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton. He and Sam Walton's other heirs collectively own approximately 45% of Walmart's stock. Walton served on Walmart's board of directors for over a decade before handing over his position to his son, Steuart, in 2016. Jim Walton also serves as chairman of the family-owned Arvest Bank Group, which has assets of $26 billion.
#11 - Rob Walton (110 B$)
Rob Walton, the late son of the founder of the retail giant Sam Walton (deceased in 1992) is now worth about 110 billion dollars and was the first member of the richest family in America to boast a 12-figure fortune.
#10 - Steve Ballmer (118 B$)
Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 as the company's 30th employee. He was its CEO from 2000 to 2014. He is notably known for leading Microsoft after the internet bubble burst in the early 2000s and during the company's efforts to catch up with Google in search and Apple in mobile phone technology. In 2014, Ballmer bought the NBA team Los Angeles Clippers for 2 billion dollars. According to Forbes, this sports team is now worth 4.65 billion dollars.
#9 - Amancio Ortega (124 B$)
Amancio Ortega, from Spain, co-founded Inditex with his ex-wife, Rosalia Mera, in 1975. He owns about 60% of this group specialized in the manufacture and distribution of 'fast fashion' textiles. Inditex is the parent company of eight brands, including Zara, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, and Bershka, and has 5,000 stores worldwide. Since 2022, the billionaire's daughter, Marta Ortega Pérez, has become the company's president.
#8 - Sergey Brin (138 B$)
Sergey Brin, originally from Russia, co-founded Google with Larry Page in 1998 after they met at Stanford University, where they were studying computer science. He was president of Alphabet, Google's parent company, from 2011 to 2019. Today, he remains a board member and majority shareholder of the company.
#7 - Larry Page (144 B$)
In collaboration with Sergey Brin, Larry Page invented the PageRank algorithm, which powers Google's search engine. He was the CEO of the company from its foundation in 1998 until 2001, and then again from 2011 to 2015. He then became the CEO of Google's new parent company, Alphabet, until 2019. He is still to this day a member of the board of directors and majority shareholder.
#6 - Warren Buffet (154 B$)
Nicknamed 'the Oracle of Omaha', Warren Buffett is one of the most successful investors of all time. He heads Berkshire Hathaway, which owns, among other things, the Geico insurance company, the Duracell battery manufacturer, and the Dairy Queen restaurant chain. According to Forbes, he has pledged to give away more than 99% of his fortune. So far, he has donated around $62 billion, mostly through the Gates Foundation and his children's foundations.
#5 - Bernard Arnault (178 B$)
Bernard Arnault leads the LVMH empire, which owns 75 fashion and cosmetics brands, including Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co, Dior, and Sephora. Arnault's company, Agache, owns shares in LVMH as well as other companies. It also supports the venture capital firm Aglaé Ventures, which invests in companies like Netflix and ByteDance. All five of Arnault's children work at LVMH. In July 2022, he proposed to transform his holding Agache into a limited partnership.
#4 - Larry Ellison (192 B$)
Larry Ellison is the president, technology director and co-founder of Oracle, the largest database management company. He owns about 40% of the company. He left the position of CEO of Oracle in 2014, after working there for 37 years. Ellison was also a member of Tesla's board of directors from December 2018 to August 2022.
#3 - Jeff Bezos (215 B$)
In 1994, Jeff Bezos launched Amazon, an online commerce company from his garage in Seattle. He initially held the position of CEO before leaving in 2021 to become executive chairman. He currently owns just under 10% of the company's shares. He also owns The Washington Post media outlet as well as Blue Origin, a space flight company. In 2020, the billionaire announced his intention to donate $10 billion to climate-related causes by 2030 through the Bezos Earth Fund; he has already disbursed $2 billion to date.
#2 - Mark Zuckerberg (216 B$)
It was at the age of 19 that Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004. Zuckerberg introduced Facebook to the stock market in 2012. To this day, he owns about 13% of the company's shares. In 2021, the Facebook company changed its name to become Meta. This allowed it to promote its contribution to the development of a three-dimensional virtual universe, called the metaverse. In 2015, Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, promised to donate 99% of the shares they own in Meta to charitable works.
#1 - Elon Musk (342 B$)
Elon Musk has co-founded seven companies, including electric car manufacturer Tesla, rocket producer SpaceX, and artificial intelligence startup xAI. Apart from stock options, he owns about 12% of Tesla. He owns 42% of SpaceX, valued at $350 billion in a private stock sale in December 2024. Musk owns about 54% of xAI, which was worth around $50 billion in November 2024, according to private investors. Musk is also the owner of social media platform X (formerly Twitter), which he bought in 2022 in a deal valued at $44 billion. According to Forbes, the value of X dropped by nearly 70% in August 2024. Musk has recently sold X to xAI (at a loss).