In 1977, Ellison founded Software Development Laboratories alongside Oates and Miner. Two years later, the company released Oracle, the first commercial relational database program to use Structured Query Language. The database program proved so popular that SDL changed its name to Oracle Systems Corporation in 1982. The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us.

1. Sergey Brin cofounded Google with Page in 1998 and served as the search-and-advertising titan’s first president.
2. After graduation, he enrolled in Stanford University to acquire a PhD in computer science.
3. As of January 2025, the #1 world’s richest man is Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX), his net worth is $421 bn.
4. Arnault focuses on preserving the exclusivity and heritage of each brand within LVMH, while also pursuing innovation and expanding in emerging markets.
5. Low-income workers, often migrants, living in some very wealthy nations suddenly found themselves unemployed, homeless and stranded without much of a safety net.
6. Bezos purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million and founded Blue Origin, an aerospace company that is commercializing space travel.

Bill Gates: $158 billion

۶۰ people from the 2012 list fell below a billion dollars of assets in 2013, and eight others from the 2012 list died. The Asia-Pacific region had the most drop-offs, with 29, followed by the United States with 16. The 2013 list featured 138 women, of which 50 came from the United States. According to Forbes’s 2023 list of billionaires, there were 2,640 billionaires worldwide in 2023, for an average of .34 billionaires per million people. Nearly 50% of the list of the existing billionaires are poorer than they were the year before. The United States has the most billionaires, with 735, followed by China (including Hong Kong and Macau) with 562.

Amancio Ortega

Zuckerberg envisions Meta as a leader in building the “metaverse,” a virtual environment where people can interact, work, and play in digital spaces. He sees the metaverse as the next evolution of social networking and a key part of the future of technology. Mark Zuckerberg co-founded Facebook, now known as Meta Platforms, Inc., in 2004 while he was a student at Harvard University. The platform initially served college students but quickly expanded to a global audience. Although Ellison stepped down as CEO in 2014, he remains actively involved as Oracle’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chairman of the Board, where he focuses on advancing Oracle’s technology and cloud computing offerings.

Michael Dell

1. The famed investor’s conglomerate owns scores of businesses, including GEICO, See’s Candies, and BNSF Railway, and holds multibillion-dollar stakes in public companies such as Apple and Coca-Cola.
2. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, four years after starting the company, joined the list at 23 to become the youngest self-made billionaire.
3. His son Chase heads the company’s venture capital arm, which has invested in AI-based neurological diagnosis firm NeuraLight and smart supply chain firm Arkestro.
4. On January 31, 2007, Dell returned as CEO at the request of the board, succeeding Rollins.
5. Arnault built his fortune through strategic acquisitions and leadership at LVMH, transforming it into a global powerhouse in luxury fashion, jewelry, and cosmetics.

In 2008, the SpaceX Falcon 1 was the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach orbit, and SpaceX made further history in 2017 by re-flying both a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft for the first time. Musk founded PayPal and is also the founder of Tesla Inc, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Neuralink.

That has boosted the company’s value to $3.2 trillion — meaning it now rivals Apple as the world’s most valuable company —and bolstered Huang’s superrich status in the process. Sergey Brin cofounded Google with Page in 1998 and served as the search-and-advertising titan’s first president. He also founded the space company Blue Origin and owns The Washington Post. Musk’s wealth has nearly doubled this year — surging by $245 billion or almost Jeff Bezos’ entire net worth — because Tesla stock has jumped by over 85% and SpaceX’s valuation has surged to $350 billion, per Bloomberg.

Gates became the first American to take the top spot of the world’s billionaires in 1995 with a net worth of $12.5 billion, and he remained there during the dot-com bubble’s height in 1999 when his fortune peaked at $90 billion. After the dot-com bubble started to collapse in 2000, his wealth dropped to $60 billion, although he remained at the top of the list. Right now, there is probably not a trillionaire, but there is someone who is gaining on.

The top billionaire and world’s richest individual is Bernard Arnault, overseeing the LVMH empire (including Louis Vuitton), worth $211 billion. Together, the world’s billionaires are worth $12.2 trillion, down from $12.7 trillion in 2022. With so much of their wealth in publicly traded stocks, the net worth of the richest fluctuates along with the market valuations of the companies they own.

Buffett built his wealth through strategic, long-term investments, primarily via Berkshire Hathaway. His disciplined approach to investing, along with his acquisitions of profitable companies, has grown his fortune and cemented his reputation in finance. Sergey Brin is the co-founder of Google, which he launched with Larry Page in 1998. Their search engine transformed how people find information online, establishing Google as one of the most influential tech companies in the world. Larry Page stepped down as CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, in 2019, but he remains a board member and major shareholder. Although he is no longer involved in day-to-day operations, he continues to influence the company’s vision and strategy.

Buffett has gifted about half his Berkshire shares to the Gates Foundation and his four family foundations since 2006. Ballmer retired as CEO in 2014 with a 4% stake — a position now worth more than $130 billion. He promptly bought the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion and remains the basketball team’s owner. He joined the company in 1980 as Bill Gates’ assistant, initially negotiating a profit share, which he later swapped for an equity stake when it top 100 richest person in world became excessively large. He and Page stepped down from their respective roles as Alphabet’s president and CEO in 2019. LVMH stock has struggled this year, falling over 10% and eroding Arnault’s net worth in the process.

Arnault initially worked in his family’s construction business, Ferret-Savinel, before pivoting to luxury goods in the 1980s. He acquired Christian Dior and used this investment as a foundation to expand into the luxury sector, eventually building LVMH. In 1989, Mr. Arnault became the majority shareholder of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton, establishing it as the world’s leading luxury products group. Ellison owns a variety of assets, including real estate properties, such as nearly the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai, which he purchased in 2012. He also invests in wellness companies and is a major stakeholder in Tesla. He also founded The Boring Company, which integrates efficient tunneling technology with an all-electric public transit system to reduce urban congestion and facilitate high-speed travel.