Shifting fortunes among tech companies mixed up the ranks of the world's billionaires in 2025, although familiar titans remained in the running and the majority added billions to their wealth.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk remained solidly in first place of the billionaire horse race for the year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, fueled at year end with an approximate $800 billion valuation of SpaceX related to a potential secondary offering reported by The Wall Street Journal. Musk owns about 40% of the space exploration company. His wealth was also boosted by an 18% gain in Tesla shares, the restoration of stock options worth about $138 billion by the Delaware Supreme Court, and the merger of Musk's privately held artificial intelligence company xAI with X.
Musk's hold on the title of the world's richest person wasn't a sure thing at the beginning of the year amid his foray into politics as titular head of the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency. Tesla shareholders weren't happy that Musk appeared to be taking his eye off the ball at the electric-car maker, and then there was the messy falling out with President Donald Trump.
Bloomberg puts Elon Musk's wealth at $627 billion for the year through Dec. 29, but Barron's has calculated that it's closer to $750 billion, up $400 billion just this past year. To understand how large a gain that is consider that the nine billionaires ranked behind the Tesla and Space X CEO, according to their net worth, collectively gained about $393 billion all of last year, according to Bloomberg's calculations.
As the discrepancy between Barron's and Bloomberg's figures reveals, calculating the net worth of billionaires is challenging. Many, including Musk, amass wealth through private enterprises that can be difficult to value. Bloomberg taps an array of publicly information -- including real estate values, insider stock transactions, dividends and taxes -- to come up with the estimates for its index, which is updated daily.
Below Musk, the billionaire ranks were shuffled throughout the year along with AI wins and losses for companies such as Oracle, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Nvidia, according to the Bloomberg index.
Amazon.com co-founder and chairman Jeff Bezos started the year in second place, with wealth of about $228 billion, and ended the year ranked No. 3 with $255 billion. Bezos holds about 8.3% of Amazon's shares, according to Bloomberg, which rose about 5.8% this year.
Surging ahead of Bezos was Google co-founder Larry Page, who gained $101 billion throughout the year for a total net worth of $270 billion, climbing from No. 7 on the list at the end of last year as the value of Google parent Alphabet soared on the strength of its AI business. Sergey Brin, who co-founded Google with Page, also saw his wealth climb on Alphabet's fortunes. Brin ended the year ranked No. 4 with a net worth of $251 billion, up from No. 10 a year earlier.
Page's net worth at year end also exceeded the total for Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, who had been ranked No. 2 at the end of the third quarter but slipped back to rank No. 5 by Dec. 29 with a net worth of $248 billion. Ellison was in fourth place at the start of the year, but on Sept. 10, his net worth popped by $112 billion after shares of Oracle rose on a strong earnings report and he briefly overtook Musk to grab the No. 1 spot during intraday trading. Ellison owns 1.2 billion shares of the cloud-computing firm, which has lately been under pressure as investors picked apart a $300 million contract it forged with OpenAI.
Oracle will also become a 15% owner of TikTok in a deal set to close in January, and Ellison and his son, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, are on a quest to own Warner Bros. Discovery, with the elder Ellison providing an irrevocable personal guarantee of $40.4 billion of their $30-a-share offer's equity financing.
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg's status in the ranks slipped to No. 6 at year-end from No. 3 as investor views shifted on the Facebook owner's AI strategies. Although the stock surged in the first half of the year on the strength of its AI investments, it has since faltered amid reports of internal turmoil and concerns that it is falling behind on its AI plans.
LVMH's Paris-listed shares ended the year flat, while Chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault -- the only non-U.S. billionaire in Bloomberg's top 10 -- slipped in the ranks to No. 7 from No. 5 at the start of the year.
Bloomberg calculates Arnault's wealth by crediting him with all shares held by the family group "to reflect his status as the top exec and patriarch." Arnault's five children all hold executive positions within the luxury retail conglomerate. If the wealth of Jim Walton, Rob Walton, and Alice Walton -- three of the four children of another retail giant, Walmart founder Sam Walton -- were combined, it would equal $406 billion, a total that would place the family in the No. 2 spot.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates fell out of the top 10 to land at No. 16 by year's end as he announced he would be giving away $200 billion of his current and future wealth over the next 20 years. Replacing Gates in the top 10 is Jensen Huang, president and CEO of Nvidia, who ranked No. 11 at the start of the year and ended at No. 9. Huang owns about 3.3% of Nvidia through direct holdings and family trusts, Bloomberg said.
With a net worth estimated at $151 billion by Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, who will retire as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of this year, slipped to No. 10 on Bloomberg's list from No. 8 at the start of the year. Buffett will continue to be chairman of Berkshire, with shares valued at about $147 billion.
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