The wealth of the world’s ten richest people shot up by $64billion in one day following Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, according to a major wealth index.
The rise – equivalent to £49.5bn – marks the largest combined increase in the history of The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which began in 2012 and is dominated by US tech billionaires.
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, saw the biggest increase to his wealth, with $26.5bn added to his fortune which now stands at $290bn.
The prominent Trump ally, who has campaigned alongside the Republican in recent weeks, benefitted from a rise in the share price of Tesla, the electric car manufacturer of which he is CEO and owns a 13 per cent stake.
Gains for the wealthiest came in large part due to the surge in US stocks on Wednesday as investors anticipate the new administration having low-tax and limited regulations in the fiscal policy.
Trump received congratulations from tech tycoons including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook founder and Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and Apple chief Tim Cook yesterday.
Bezos, the world’s second richest person, added $7bn to his fortune, bringing it up to $228bn.
Meanwhile the third wealthiest person, Zuckerberg, took a hit of $81bn yesterday, though his wealth remains at a staggering $202bn.
The only other member of the top 10 to make a loss was French luxury goods tycoon Bernard Arnault, whose fortune fell by nearly $3bn.
Almost all of those who saw their wealth soar were tech chiefs – with the exception of world-renowned investor Warren Buffet, who added $7.5bn to his fortune, bringing it to nearly $150bn.
Long-time Republican supporter Larry Ellison, the chair of software company Oracle, increased his wealth by nearly $10bn to $193bn.
Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates, the former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also secured significant windfalls, according to the estimates.
Meanwhile Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin each increased their wealth by over $5bn.
This is despite Trump attacking Google on the campaign trail, alleging that the search engine displayed negative articles about him but not his opponent Kamala Harris.
Source: Bloomberg Billionaire Index
Taking to social media in September, he threatened to direct the Justice Department to pursue criminal prosecutions against the tech giant in response.
Neil Wilson, chief analyst at the broker Finalto, told The Guardian US stocks rose on Wednesday due to what he called to a ‘pure Maga trade’, with investors buying shares as clear Trump win looking increasingly likely.
‘It was the prospect of lower taxes, deregulation across a wider variety of sectors, such as banks and energy and tech, plus a big, reflexive relief rally on the fact that the outcome of the election was clean and uncontested,’ he said.
‘The red-wave result was what every American capitalist would have favoured and was not a certainty by any means coming into the election, so the reaction was decisive.’
It was not only billionaires cashing in yesterday, with a crypto enthusiast claiming that the industry raked in an eye-watering $100 billion in just 24 hours as the odds began to swing in Trump’s favour during the US election.
In an interview with , Bitcoin investor Dan Held said that he believed that crypto is trading up because of Trump and Musk signalling their plans to reform government agencies.