Ilon Musk topped the rating. The largest shareholder of Tesla has not occupied the first line of the rating since 2022. He was among the 1,422 people whose fortune has increased. Another 698 people became poorer, but not so much that they left the rating. Another 288 people were included in the list for the first time, including 15 Russians.
So, here are the top 10 billionaires of 2025
No. 1 Elon Musk
Wealth: $342 billion (+$147 billion)
Source of wealth: Tesla, SpaceX
Age: 53
Country: USA
Musk, Tesla’s largest shareholder, hasn’t been at the top of the rankings since 2022. Over the past year, he became richer by $147 billion.
The billionaire is a co-founder of seven companies, including electric car manufacturer Tesla (12% of Tesla shares excluding options, but more than half of the shares are pledged as collateral for personal loans of up to $3.5 billion), rocket manufacturer SpaceX and artificial intelligence startup xAI.
SpaceX, founded in 2002, is valued at $350 billion based on a private sale of shares in December 2024. Musk owns approximately 42% of the stock.
On March 29, Musk sold social network X (formerly Twitter) to his AI startup xAI for $45 billion. “The future of xAI and X are intertwined”, Musk said. He said the move will “combine xAI’s advanced artificial intelligence capabilities and expertise with X’s tremendous reach.” The company formed by the deal, XAI Holdings, is worth more than $100 billion, Bloomberg writes.
The richest man on Earth may now also be the most powerful. The South African-born former Democrat, who left Canada when he was a student and moved to the United States, unexpectedly became Donald Trump’s main supporter during the last presidential election race. He appeared at campaign rallies, donated $119 million to political campaign development – all to get Trump back into the White House. In his presidential victory speech, Trump called Musk a genius and later invited him to his Mar-a-Lago residence and even included him in a family group photo. A week after the election, Trump appointed Musk to co-chair a new advisory committee, the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.), tasked with cutting federal spending.
No. 2 Mark Zuckerberg
Wealth: $216 billion (+$39 billion)
Source of wealth: Meta (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia)
Age: 40
Country: USA
After dropping out of the top 10 richest billionaires in 2023, Zuckerberg managed to climb from 16th place to fourth in 2024 and into the top three in 2025.
Zuckerberg launched Facebook (owned by Meta, a company recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) at Harvard in 2004 at the age of 19 so that students could match names with photos of classmates. In May 2012, he took the company public. In November 2021, Facebook changed its name to Meta Platforms as a sign that the company is shifting its focus to the meta-universe. Zuckerberg owns about 13% of the company.
In 2015, Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan pledged to give 99% of their stake in Meta to charity during their lifetime.
No. 3 Jeff Bezos
Wealth: $215 billion (+$21 billion)
Source of wealth: Amazon.com
Age: 61
Country: USA
Bezos has managed to retain his third position in the ranking of the world’s richest businessmen. The founder of online retailer Amazon opened it in 1994 in his garage in Seattle. Today it is one of the largest online retailers in the world. Bezos stepped down as CEO in 2021. He now owns just under 10% of the company.
In 1998, Bezos met Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and managed to become one of the company’s first business angels, investing about $250,000.
Bezos topped the ranking of the world’s richest billionaires for four years until 2022, ceding the richest status to Ilon Musk. Despite Bezos’ third year in third place, his fortune continues to grow.
In an interview with CNN in November 2022, Bezos said he plans to give away most of his fortune during his lifetime, without revealing specific details.
No. 4 Larry Ellison
Wealth: $192 billion (+$51 billion)
Source of wealth: Oracle
Age: 80
Country: USA
Larry Ellison founded software maker Oracle, whose first customer was the CIA in 1977, to fill a growing need for databases. In 1986, the company IPOed and raised $31.5 million. The company went public one day before Microsoft.
Ellison stepped down as CEO in 2014, after 37 years in the position. Oracle’s growth is due in part to its continued acquisitions of software companies, with the largest deal in 2021 being the $28.3 billion purchase of electronic medical records company Cerner.
In 2020, Ellison moved permanently to the Hawaiian island of Lanai, which he bought almost entirely in 2012 for $300 million.
No. 5 Bernard Arnault and family
Wealth: $178 billion (-$55 billion)
Source of wealth: LVMH
Age: 76
Country: France
Last year’s leader of the rating this time rolled back to the fifth line. LVMH is the largest holding in the luxury goods industry, uniting more than 75 brands, including Givenchy, Fendi, Bulgari, Hublot, Tiffany & Co., Dom Pérignon and many others.
Arnaud Agache’s holding company backs venture capital firm Aglaé Ventures, which invests in companies such as Netflix and TikTok’s parent company ByteDance. In July 2022, he proposed reorganizing his holding company Agache, which owns most of his LVMH shares, to give equal shares to his five children. In January 2025, after the company’s financial report failed to meet investors’ expectations, LVMH shares plummeted, reducing Arnault’s fortune by $11 billion in one day.
No. 6 Warren Buffett
Wealth: $154 billion (+$21 billion)
Source of wealth: Berkshire Hathaway
Age: 94
Country: USA
Warren Buffett runs the investment house Berkshire Hathaway, whose key assets include Apple, Coca-Cola, American Express, Bank of America, Chevron and many others. The son of a US congressman bought his first shareholding at the age of 11, and at the age of 14 he already owned a small business renting slot machines.
Buffett leads a modest lifestyle. He still lives in a house bought in 1958 for $31,500, likes hamburgers, Coca-Cola and does not use expensive gadgets. He is also one of the biggest philanthropists: as part of The Giving Pledge initiative (founded together with Bill Gates), he has pledged to donate 99% of his fortune to charity.
No. 7 Larry Page
Wealth: $144 billion (+$30 billion)
Source of wealth: Google
Age: 52
Country: USA
Google’s co-founder stepped down as CEO of parent company Alphabet at the end of 2019, but remains a shareholder and board member. He is also co-founder of Planetary Resources, a company that explores opportunities to expand the Earth’s natural resource base. Page is also funding flying car startups Kitty Hawk and Opener, and biotech startups with dreams of extending human life. Page avoids publicity, rarely gives interviews and leads a private lifestyle.
No. 8 Sergey Brin
Wealth: $138 billion (+$28 billion)
Source of wealth: Google
Age: 51
Country: USA
In 1998, Brin and Page launched Google from a garage in California. Their search engine offered a new approach to page ranking based on link analysis, making internet searches more accurate and convenient.
Today, Brin is passionate about artificial intelligence, aerospace technology, and biotechnology. He has invested in Google Glass, flying cars, life extension projects and fighting Parkinson’s disease. The main factor in the growth of Brin’s fortune is the increase in the value of technology companies’ shares, especially Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company), as a result of the general rise of the technology sector in 2024.
No. 9 Amancio Ortega
Wealth: $124 billion (+$21 billion)
Source of wealth: Zara
Age: 89
Country: Spain
Amancio Ortega is one of the richest clothing retailers in the world. Together with his former wife Rosalia Mera (died 2013), he founded Inditex in 1975, known for the Zara clothing chain, as well as Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Pull&Bear and Oysho. Inditex owns more than 6,000 stores in 90 countries.
He stepped down as head of Inditex in 2011, handing over management, but remains its largest shareholder (60%). In fiscal year 2024 (February 1, 2024 to January 31, 2025), Inditex achieved record financial performance, with net profit rising to €5.866 billion.
Through its Amancio Ortega Foundation, it donates millions of euros to the development of medicine and education in Spain.
No. 10 Steve Ballmer
Wealth: $118 billion (-$3 billion)
Source of wealth: Microsoft
Age: 68
Country: USA
Steve Ballmer is the former CEO of Microsoft. He joined the company in 1980 at the invitation of Bill Gates, whom he met while studying at Harvard. It was he who led the development of the first versions of MS-DOS and Windows. Ballmer’s fortune continues to decline. If last year it decreased by $10 billion, mainly because of the fall in Microsoft shares, this year Ballmer lost another $3 billion.
