Who rules wealth rankings in January?

WASHINGTON: Forbes’ latest billionaire rankings have come out and tech-giant Elon Musk tops the world’s wealthiest individual list as of January 2025 with a net worth of 415.7 billion USD.

Musk’s fortune saw an increase of $91 billion since December 1, fuelled by SpaceX’s success missions and valuation of 350 billion USD.

Founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos follows Musk with $233.5 billion, with Mark Zuckerberg taking the third spot on the list with a net worth of $211.4 billion.

Meanwhile, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang has entered the top 10 list for the first time.

Following are the figures and rankings of the richest people according to Forbes world’s real-time billionaires as of today:

Elon Musk

Musk has become a literal tech giant with being the CEO of car company Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX, he is chairman and chief technology of social media company X (formerly known as Twitter) and founder of artificial intelligence company xAI. He owns 13% of Tesla’s stock, as per Forbes.

Musk has also made it big in the US politics after he donated more than $100 million and was named by President-elect Donald Trump as co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Jeff Bezos

With a net worth of $235.4 billion, Bezos established Amazon in 1994 and ran the company as its CEO until 2021 and now remains its chairman.

Amazon shares increased by 5% last year in December, adding about $10 billion to Bezos’ fortune at the end of the year. It is also dominating cloud storage and moved into movie and series production to feed Amazon Prime Video.

From 2018 through 2021, Bezos was the richest person on Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires but slipped to the second spot in 2022 and dropped one more place on the 2024 list.

Mark Zuckerberg

Zuckerberg, 40, co-founded Facebook — now known as Meta Platforms — when he was at Harvard University in 2004. The social media site has become and grown into the world’s largest social network, earning him a fortune of $211.4 billion. Instagram and WhatsApp also come under Meta Platforms, both of which it acquired and expanded.

Zuckerberg, as the CEO of Meta, owns about 13% of it after making it public in 2012.

Larry Ellison

With a net worth of $204.6 billion, Larry Ellison co-founded the software firm Oracle in 1977 and ran the company as its CEO until 2014, he now serves as chairman and chief technology officer of the company.

Though his company’s share fell more than 9% in December 2024 erasing around $17 billion from his fortune.

Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault has a net fortune of $167.8 billion as he is chairman and CEO of luxury goods group LVMH.

His father made millions in the construction business and to get his start, Arnault used $15 million from that fortune to buy Christian Dior.

From there, he went on to build the largest luxury goods company in the world with some 70 fashion and cosmetics brands.

Larry Page

Larry Page has moved up one rank from last month with his net worth now being $160.4 billion.

He co-founded Google, one of the most used and preferred search engines, with Sergey Brin, a fellow Stanford PhD student in 1998 and served as the company’s CEO until 2001 and then again from 2011 to 2015.

Page now serves as a board member of Alphabet and is a controlling shareholder. He was also a founding investor in an asteroid mining company Planetary Resources, which was acquired in 2018 by blockchain firm ConsenSys.

Sergey Brin

Just as his Google co-founder Page’s fortune skyrocketed in the last month as Alphabet’s shares rose. His fortune now amasses $153.1 billion. With Page, he currently serves as a board member of Google’s parent company Alphabet and is a controlling shareholder.

Warren Buffett

Buffet, known as the “Oracle of Omaha”, Buffet is considered one of the most successful investors of all time. He is the son of a US congressman and first bought stock at age 11, filing his taxes by the time he was 13. He runs Berkshire Hathaway which owns dozens of companies. He now has a net worth of $140.6 billion.

Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer was a classmate of Bill Gates at Harvard University. He joined Microsoft as the company’s employee number 30 in 1980 after he dropped out of the MBA programme at Stanford.

Ballmer ran Microsoft as its CEO from 2000 to 2014 and has a fortune of $125.2 billion.

When he left Microsoft, he purchased the Los Angeles Clippers team for $2 billion.

Jensen Huang

With a net fortune of $122.8 billion, Huang’s appearance in the world’s top 10 richest at the start of a month is the first for him. He co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and is CEO of the company.