These 10 Billionaires Got $730 Billion Richer In 2025 |
Elon Musk’s march toward a trillion-dollar fortune is no longer theoretical. After beginning the year worth $421 billion, Musk became the first person in history worth $500 billion in October; then first to $600 billion last Monday, after SpaceX launched a tender offer valuing the rocket maker at roughly $800 billion; then first to $700 billion last Friday, after a Delaware court ruled that Musk can keep a massive award of Tesla stock options that had previously been voided. As 2025 draws to a close, Musk’s fortune stands at $754 billion as of December 22.
No one had a better year than Musk, whose net worth has grown by more than $333 billion in 2025, or $935 million per day. That’s the most of any billionaire in the world—and more than anyone else is even worth. (The second-richest person on Earth is Google cofounder Larry Page, worth $255 billion.) But Musk was far from the only billionaire to have gotten a lot richer over the past 12 months. In all, the planet’s class of 3,100-plus billionaires has gotten $3.6 trillion wealthier since the start of January, worth $18.7 trillion in all.
Most saw their fortunes swell over a good year for many stock markets. The S&P 500 has returned 17%, while major indices in places such as Germany (22%), Japan (26%) and Canada (30%) did even better. Of course, some billionaires were more fortunate than others: The ten biggest gainers of all added more than $729 billion to their already-astonishing wealth over the past year.
Americans account for six of these ten largest gainers and more than 85% of the total dollar amount gained by the group, underscoring how tightly the latest wave of wealth creation has been concentrated in a country led by a billionaire president with a super-rich Cabinet. All five of the very biggest gainers year are American tech billionaires, as........