Billionaires have seen their combined wealth more than double over the past decade to $14 trillion, according to a new report, with tech billionaires’ coffers filling the fastest.
Switzerland’s biggest bank UBS, which is among the world’s largest wealth managers, said the number of dollar billionaires increased from 1,757 to 2,682 over the past 10 years, peaking in 2021 with 2,686.
The 10th annual Billionaire Ambitions report, which tracks the wealth of the world’s richest people, found that billionaires have comfortably outperformed global equity markets over the past decade.
Between 2015 and 2024, total billionaire wealth increased by 121 percent from $6.3 trillion to $14.0 trillion – while the MSCI AC World Index of global equities rose 73 percent.
The report documents ‘the growth and investment of great wealth, as well as how it’s being preserved for future generations and used to have a positive effect on society’, said Benjamin Cavalli, head of strategic clients at UBS global wealth management.
The wealth of tech billionaires increased the fastest, followed by that of billionaire industrialists.
Worldwide, tech billionaires’ wealth tripled from $788.9 billion in 2015 to $2.4 trillion in 2024.
‘In earlier years, the new billionaires commercialised e-commerce, social media and digital payments; more recently they engineered the generative AI boom, while also developing cyber-security, fintech, 3D printing and robotics,’ UBS said.
The report found that since 2020, the global growth trend had been slowed due to consolidation among China’s billionaires.
From 2015 to 2020, billionaire wealth grew globally at an annual rate of 10 percent, but growth has plunged to one percent since 2020.
Chinese billionaire wealth more than doubled from 2015 to 2020, rising from $887.3 billion to $2.1 trillion, but has since fallen back to $1.8 trillion.
However, North American billionaire wealth has risen 58.5 percent to $6.1 trillion since 2020, ‘led by industrials and tech billionaires’.
Meanwhile billionaires are relocating more frequently, with 176 having moved country since 2020, with Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and the United States being popular destinations.
The heirs and philanthropic causes of baby boomer generation billionaires are set to inherit an estimated $6.3 trillion over the next 15 years, UBS said.
1. Elon Musk – $353 billion
The South African businessman’s wealth is tied up in the success of Tesla, his electric car firm.
Musk also owns the majority of X, formerly Twitter – the social media platform he bought it for $44billion in late 2022.
He also owns a large portion of Space X, and has stakes in brain implant company Neuralink and The Boring Company.
2. Jeff Bezos – $238 billion
The American businessman is the chairman and founder of Amazon, which he launched out of his Seattle garage in 1994.
The retail giant is now considered a tech company because a lot of its profits are generated through its cloud computing service AWS.
Bezos also owns The Washington Post and Blue Origin, an aerospace company developing rockets.
The tycoon said in a 2022 interview with CNN that he plans to give away most of his wealth during his lifetime, though he did not give specific details.
3. Mark Zuckerberg – $217 billion
The Facebook founder started the social media platform as a 19-year-old college student at Harvard in 2004.
Among the youngest of the tech tycoons, the 40-year-old took his business public in 2012.
The company took over Instagram, and Zuckerberg changed its name to Meta in 2021 to shift the its focus to the metaverse.
Zuckerberg part-owns Meta, and shares in the company almost tripled in value last year.
4. Larry Ellison – $203 billion
Another tech founder, Larry Ellison accrued his wealth thanks to Oracle, one of the largest software companies in the world.
The New York native began his career working as a programmer but soon decided he wanted to work for himself.
He worked with two friends to establish a new kind of database management system that would be more efficient than its competitors.
Oracle was an instant success in the 1980s, and has endured as one of the leading software companies, earning $53 billion in revenue in the 2024 fiscal year.
Ellison also has a business that owns two luxury resorts on the Hawaiian island of Lanai and has invested heavily in Tesla.
5. Bernard Arnault – $187 billion
Arnault serves as the CEO and chair of the French luxury conglomerate LVMH which owns well-known brands including Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co, and Dom Pérignon.
But the majority of his fortune is driven by his 97.5 percent stake in Christian Dior, according to Bloomberg.
In 2022, the 75-year-old entrepreneur raised LMVH’s mandatory retirement age to 80 which gives him another five years in control.
His five children all work across LVHM and its brands.
Source: Bloomberg Billionaires Index
Note: The list of billionaires can change daily as the ranking is based on stock valuations.