A new elite tier of the ultra-wealthy has emerged: the Superbillionaire. According to The Wall Street Journal, there are now 24 individuals worldwide with a net worth exceeding $50 billion.
Leading the pack is Elon Musk, whose staggering fortune of approximately $419 billion makes him more than two million times wealthier than the average American household. Other high-profile names on the list include Jeff Bezos ($264 billion), Mark Zuckerberg ($221 billion), and Google co-founder Sergey Brin ($160 billion).
Tech Titans Replacing Industrial Giants
Historically, the world’s wealthiest individuals were industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, who amassed their fortunes through steel, railroads, and oil. Today’s richest, however, overwhelmingly come from the technology sector—and unlike the industrialists of the past, their fortunes are largely tied to company stock prices rather than physical assets. This makes their wealth highly volatile, fluctuating by tens of billions of dollars in a single year without significantly altering their place on the list.
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The World’s 24 Richest Superbillionaires
Here’s a look at the most financially dominant individuals, as reported by The Wall Street Journal:
- Elon Musk – $419.4 billion (Tesla, SpaceX)
- Jeff Bezos – $263.8 billion (Amazon)
- Bernard Arnault – $238.9 billion (LVMH)
- Larry Ellison – $237 billion (Oracle)
- Mark Zuckerberg – $220.8 billion (Meta)
- Sergey Brin – $160.5 billion (Alphabet)
- Steve Ballmer – $157.4 billion (Microsoft)
- Warren Buffett – $154.2 billion (Berkshire Hathaway)
- James Walton – $117.5 billion (Walmart)
- Samuel Robson Walton – $114.4 billion (Walmart)
- Amancio Ortega – $113 billion (Inditex)
- Alice Walton – $110.2 billion (Walmart)
- Jensen Huang – $108.4 billion (Nvidia)
- Bill Gates – $106 billion (Microsoft)
- Michael Bloomberg – $103.4 billion (Bloomberg LP)
- Larry Page – $100.9 billion (Alphabet)
- Mukesh Ambani – $90.6 billion (Reliance Industries)
- Charles Koch – $67.4 billion (Koch Industries)
- Julia Koch – $65.1 billion (Koch Industries)
- Francoise Bettencourt Meyers – $61.9 billion (L’Oréal)
- Gautam Adani – $60.6 billion (Adani Group)
- Michael Dell – $59.8 billion (Dell Technologies)
- Zhong Shanshan – $57.7 billion (Nongfu Spring)
- Prajogo Pangestu – $55.4 billion (Barito Pacific)
A Broken System?
Renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz attributes this dramatic wealth accumulation to outdated antitrust laws, which were not designed to regulate the near-monopolistic power of today’s tech giants. Without strong competition laws, companies like Amazon, Meta, and Tesla have been able to consolidate vast amounts of wealth.
Additionally, Stiglitz argues that today’s Superbillionaires are far more aggressive in avoiding taxes than the wealthy figures of previous generations. Unlike the Carnegies and Rockefellers, who contributed significantly to public infrastructure and philanthropy, the modern ultra-rich use complex financial strategies to minimize their tax burdens—keeping more wealth in private hands rather than redistributing it back into society.
One particularly striking statistic: the top 1% of Americans now control one-third of the nation’s total wealth. As wealth concentration reaches unprecedented levels, debates over economic inequality, taxation, and corporate regulation are likely to become even more heated in the years to come.
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