Top 10 Richest People in the World in 2024 (Updated)
Till 2022 there are 2640 billionaires in the world. A person calls a billionaire if his or her wealth is worth one billion units in a major currency, a major currency such as the United States dollar, or a similarly valued currency, such as the Euro or pound.
The richest people are among the world’s become iconic and inspiration to the whole world. They control significant portions of the world economy and have a major impact on various aspects of the world such as charity, scientific advancement, or international politics and media.
In this article, we will learn about the top 10 richest people in the world. They play a significant role in the success of well-known firms like Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, Google, and Nike. Each of them employs thousands of people worldwide.
Who Are the Top 10 Richest People in the World
The wealth of individuals can change rapidly, and it's difficult to predict their current net worth with certainty. However, the following are the wealthiest people in the world as per the results of the first week of February 2023.
1. Elon Musk
The first person on our list of the top 10 richest people in the world is “Elon Musk’. Elon Musk is a businessman and investor. The net worth of Mus is estimated as of January 2024 to be around $229 billion.
Family Background
Elon Muskbron in a wealthy South African Musk family on June 28, 1971. His father, Errol Musk is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer. His father was elected to the Pretoria city council to represent the anti-apartheid Progressive Party.
His mother, Maye Musk is a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in South Africa. Muak has a younger brother Kimbal, and a younger sister, Tosca.
Education
Elon Musk arrived in Canada in June 1989 and started living with one of his second cousins in Saskatchewan. During that time, he worked jobs at a farm and lumber mill. In 1990 he entered ‘Queen’s University and two years later he transferred to the ‘University of Pennsylvania’. Here he completed studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics.
In 1994, Musk held two internships in Silicon Valley. One at energy storage startup Pinnacle Research Institute and another at Palo Alto-based startup Rocket Science Games. Musk was accepted to a Ph.D. program in Materials science at Stanford University in 1995.
Career
ZIp2
In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded the Global LIk information network, later renamed Zip2. ZIp1Corp. It was a company that provided a licensed online city guide software to newspapers.
X.com And PayPal
Later In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial service and e-mail payment company, with $12 million of the money he made from the Compaq acquisition.
In 2000, X.com merged with the online bank Confinity to avoid competition. Confinity Inc. was an American software company based in Silicon Valley, Best Known as the creator of PayPal. In 2002 PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk-Play Pal’s largest shareholder with 11.72% of shares received $175.8 million.
SpaceX
In early 2001 Musk was involved with the nonprofit Mars Society, in October of the same year he traveled to Moscow with Jim Cantrell Adeo Ressi to buy Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). In February 2002 they returned to Russia and looked for three ICBMs.
They were offered a rocket for $ million, which Musk rejected. He instead decided to start a company that could build affordable rockets. With $100 million of his own money. Musk founded SpaceX in May 2002 and became the company’s CEO and Chief Engineer.
Starlink
SpaceX began development of the Starli constellation of the lo-Earth-orbit satellites to provide satellite Internet access. The first two prototype satellites were launched in February 2018. And second set of of test satellites and the first large constellation occurred in May 2019.
The first 60 operations satellites were launched. The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation is estimated by Spacex to be about $10 billion.
Tesla
Musk is attached to the Tesla. Inc in 2004 he led the Series A round of investment with his investment of $605 million the majority shareholder. At the financial crisis of Tesl Inc in 2077-2008 Eberhard was ousted from the firm. Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008.
Elon Musk is also involved with many other Businesses, his passion and his workaholic tenure led him to today’s position. Some other corporations like the SEC and shareholder Lawsuits regarding tweets Solar City and Tesla Energy, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and the X or Twitter are the corporations that lift Musk to the top of this list.
2. Bernard Arnault
Bernard Jean Etienne Arnault is the founder, chairman, and CEO of the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. LVMH is the world’s largest luxury goods company. Besides being a businessman, Bernard Arnault is also an inventor and an art collector. Bernard Arnault has an estimated net worth of USD 188.7 billion as of January 2024 according to Forbes.
Family
Arnault was born on 8 Mach 1949 in Roubaix. His mother Marie JOsephe Savinel was a mianist and had a Fascination for Dior(Christian Dior Se, commonly known as Dior, is a French multinational luxury fashion house).
His father ‘Lean Leon Arnault ‘ was a manufacturer graduate of Ecole Centrale Paris. Bernard Arnault’s father owned the civil engineering company “Ferret-Savienl’.
Education
Arnault was educated at the Lycee Maxecnce Van Der Meersch in Roubaix and The Lcee Faidherde in Lille. In 1971, he graduated from the École Polytechnique. One of France;’s leading engineering schools. In the beginning, Arnault started a job in his father's company.
After three years he convinced his father to shift the focus of the company to real estate. Then ‘Ferret-Savine’ sold the industrial construction division and was renamed Ferinel. After the acquisition of the textile company and relocation of its headquarters, the company renamed the real estate brand to the “George V Group’.
Career
Arnault started his career in 1971 in his father’s company ‘Ferrat-Savinel’ He was the president of the ‘Ferret-Savinel’ company from 1978 to 1984.
In 1984 with the help of Antoine Bernheim a senior partner of ‘Lazard Freres Arnault became the CEO of Financière Agache and subsequently won the bidding war for Boussac Saint-Frères, buying the group for a ceremonial one franc and effectively taking control of Boussac Saint-Frères.
After buying Boussac, he laid off 9000 workers in two years, after this he acquired the nickname ‘The Terminator’. Then he sold nearly all of the company’s assets only deep the Cristian Dior brand and Le Bon Marche department store. In 1987 the money became profitable.
Co-Funding and Acquisition of LVMH
In July 1988, Arnault provided $1.6 billion to form a holding company with Guinness that held 24% of LVMH’s shares. In response to rumors’Louis Vuitton group was buying VLMH’s stocks’, Arnault spent $600 million to buy 13.5% more shares of LUMH making him LVMHs largest shareholder.
In the next year, Arnault spend another $500 million to gain control of a total of 43.5% of LVMH's shares and 35% of its voting rights. On 13 January 1989, he was elected chairman of the executive management board.
LVMH’s Initial Expansion and Growth
Arnault led the LVMH with an ambitious development. Develop the LVMH group as the world's largest luxury group.
In July 1988, Arnault acquired Celine. That same year he sponsored French fashion designer ‘Christian Lacroix’ to advertise the company’s luxury clothing line. LVM acquired Berluti and Kenzo in 1993.
Acquisition of economic newspaper
In 1993 Arnault bought out the French economic newspaper ‘La Tribune’ it did not achieve the desired success despite his 150 million euro. And buy a different French economic newspaper, Les Echos for 240 million Euro.
Arnault discreetly amassed 5% of the ‘Gucci’ share before being detected. Then Arnault upped his stake to 34.4 percent while insisting he wanted to be a supportive and unassertive stakeholder. In 1998 with Albert Frere, Arnault purchased Chateau Cheval balance in a personal capacity.
From 1998 to 2001, Arnault invested in a variety of web companies such as Boo.com, librtysurf, and Zebank through his holding Europatweb. Groupe Arnault also invested in Netflix in 1999.
3. Jeff Bezos
Jeffrey Preston Bezos is a businessman, founder, chairman, former president, and CEO of Amason. It is the world’s largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. The net worth of Jeff Zezon is around 170 billion as of November 2023.
Which makes him the world’s third richest man in the world. He was the world’s first richest man from 2017 to 2021 according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes.
Family
Jeffery Preston Jorgensen was born on January 12, 1964, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His father’s name is Jacklyn and his mother’s name is Ted Jorgensen. At the time of Jeff’s birth, his mother was a 17-year-old high-school student and his father was 19 years old.
After completing high school his mother started to attend night school to bring ing him with her. Jacklyn filed for divorce in June 1965 when Jeff was 17 months old.
After his parents divorced, his mother married Mike Bezos in April 1968. Mike adopted Four-year-old Jeff. That’s why the surname was then legally changed from Jorgensen to Bezos.
Education
Jeff Attended Riiver Oaks Elementary School in Houston from fourth to sixth grade. Then his family moved to Miami, Florida where JEff attended Miami Palmetto High School. While Jeff was in high school, he worked at McDonald’s as a short-order line cook during the breakfast shift.
Bezos attended the Student Science Training Program at the University of Florida. He was valedictorian a National Merit Scholar, and a Silber Knight Award winner in 1982. Jeffrey Bezos graduated from Princeton University with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science in 1986.
Career
Founding Amazon
After their Graduation, Jeff Bezos worked on Wall Street in various related fields from 1986 to early 1994. In the Spring of 1994, Zezos read that web usage was growing at a rate of 2300% a year and eventually decided to establish an online bookstore.
He and his then-wife MacKenzie Scott, left their jobs at D.E Shaw and founded Amazon in a rented Garage in Bellevue Washington on July 5, 1994.
He accepted an estimated $300,000 from his parents as an investment in Amason. In 1998 Jeff Bezos expanded the company’s products to include a variety of other consumer goods. In 2002, Bezos led Amazon to launch Amazon Web Services.
In 2013 Bezos secured a $600 million contract with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on behalf of Amazon Web Services. In October of the year, Amazon was recognized as the largest online shopping retailer in the world.
Blue Origin
Blue Origin is a Human spaceflight startup founded by Jeff Bezos in September 2000. Rob Meyerson Led Blue Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president. Until 2006 Blue Orinin maintained a low profile untill 2006. In September 2011 one of the company’s uncrewed prototype vehicles crashed during a short-hop test flight.
Later in November 2015 a new orbital launch vehicle successfully rocketed into space and reached its planned test altitude of 329839 feet. In December 2021 he launched the NS-16 mission with his half-brothers Mark Bezos Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen.
The Washington Post
On August 2013 Jeff Bezos purchased the daily newspaper “The Washington Post” for $250 million cash. In January 2016, Bezos set out to reinvent the newspaper as a media and technology company by reconstructing its digital media, mobile platforms, and analytics software. After a surge in online readership in 2016 the paper was profitable for the first time since Bezos purchased it in 2013.
Bezos Expeditions
Bezos Expeditions is an American investment firm based in Mercer Island, Washington. It serves as a family office for Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos by managing his investments. He was one of the First shareholders of Google When he invested $250,000 in 1998.
That $250,000 investment resulted in 3.3 million shares of Google stock, worth about $3.1 billion in 2017. He also invested in Unity Biotechnology, a life-extension research firm hoping to slow or stop the process of aging.
ALtos Labs
In September 2021, Bezos co-founded Altos Labs with Mail.ru founder Yuri Milner. ALtos Labs is a Well-funded Biotechnology company dedicated to harnessing cellular reprogramming. The company left Stealth mode and launched on January 19, 2022, with a start capital of $3 million and an executive team led by Hal Barron.
Jeff Bezos is the first centibillionaire on the Forbes Real Time Billionaires Index and the Second ever to have eclipsed the feat since Bill Gates in 1999. On July 5, 0221, Bezos stepped down as the CEO and president of Amazon and took over the role of executive chairman.
4. Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III is an American Businessman, investor philanthropist, and writer. Gates West is known for co-founding the software giant Microsoft. He was a prominent pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.
Gates As Highest Richest Person
Gates has been listed as a billionaire in the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires since 1987. He was the richest person in the world from 1995 to 2017 on the list of Forbes except in 2008 and 2010 to 2013.
Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans in 2023, he was ranked 6th with a wealth of #115.0 billion. Bill Gates has an estimated net worth of USD 140 billion, which makes him the fourth-richest person in the world.
Gates attachment Besides IBM
Bill Gates is the founder and chairman of several companies including BEN, Cascade Investment, TerraPower, bgC3, and Breakthrough Energy. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is officially reported as the world’s largest private charity.
By this foundation, Gates led an early 21st-century vaccination campaign that significantly contributed to eradicating the wild poliovirus in Africa. Gates donates to various organizations and scientific research programs through this foundation.
In 2010, Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Plebge, Where they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy
5. Steve Ballmer
Steven Antony Ballmer Is an American Businessman and investor who served as the chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He owns the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is a Co-Founder of Ballmer Group, a philanthropic investment company.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates his wealth at around $122 billion in 2023. According to Investopedia, his net worth is around 131 billion making him the fifth-richest person in the world.
Family
Stemen Anthony Ballmer was born on March 24, 1956, in Detroit, Michigan. He is the son of Beatrice Dworkin and Frederic Henry Ballmer. His father was a manager at the Ford Motor Company. In 1973, He attended college prep and later joined engineering classes at Lawrence Technological University.
He graduated as valedictorian from Detroit Country Day School with a score of 790 on the mathematical section of the SAT and was a National Merit Scholar.
Career
Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 and became president of that giant company in 1998 and replaced Bill Gates as CEO on January 13, 2000. On February 4, 2014, Ballmer retired as CEO and was replaced by Satya Nadella.
Ballmer Investment in Sports Fields
Ballmer invested $150 million in cash toward a proposed $300 million renovation of KeyArena and was ready to purchase the Seattle SuperSonics from the Professional Basketball Club LLC to keep the team in Seattle. In May 2014, Ballmer was the highest bidder in an attempt to purchase the Los Angeles Clippers for a reported price of $2 billion.
Ballmer was the second person after Roberto Goizueta to become a billionaire in US dollars based on stock options received as an employee of a corporation in which he was neither a founder nor a relative of a founder.
On November 12, 2014, Ballmer and his wife Connie Ballmer donated $50 million to the University of Oregon. In that year, Ballmer provided a gift estimated at $60 million to “Harvard University’s computer science department. Ballmer previously donated $10 Million to the same department in 1994, in a joint gift with Bill Gates.
6. Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American Businessman computer programmer, and philanthropist. He co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms. ‘Time’ named Zuckerberg one of the most influential people in the world in 2008, 2010, 2016, and 2019.
In 2010 he was named as the ‘Time Person of the Year’ in December 2016, Zuckerberg was ranked tenth on the Forbes List of Powerful People of the world. He was ranked eighth with a personal worth of $106 billion. As of January 2024, Zuckerberg’s net worth was estimated at $128 billion making him the sixth richest person in the world.
Family
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York. He is the son of a psychiatrist Karen and a dentist Edward Zuckerberg. He and his three sisters were raised in a Reform Jewish household in Dodds Ferry, New York. His Great-grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Austria.
Education
Zuckerberg was using computers and writing software in middle school. At that time he worked to build a music player called the Synapse Media player. Which used machine learning to learn the user’s listening habits. The New Yorker once said of Zuckerberg, “Some kids played computer games. Mark created them.
Zuckerberg began classes at Harvard in 2002. He studied psychology and computer science and belonged to Alpha Epsilon Pi and Kirkland House. In his second year, he wrote the Course Math program which allowed users to make class selection decisions based on the choices of other students and help them from study groups.
Career
Invention of ‘TheFacebook.com’
In January 2004, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website. On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg Launched ‘The facebook’, originally located at thefacebook.com, in partnership with his roommates. The inspiration for Facebook may have come from ‘The Photo Address Book’ a student directory of Phillips Exeter Academy the prep school from which Zuckerberg graduated in 2002.
Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard in his sophomore year to complete the project. Zuckerberg, Moskovitz, and the other cofounder moved to Palo Alto, California. There they leased a small house that served as an office. Then Zuckerberg met Peter Thiel who invested in his company.
7. Larry Page
Google co-founder Edward Page is an American Businessman, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur. Page was chief executive officer of Google from 1997 until August 2001. Then again from April 2011 until July 2015, he became CEO of its newly formed parent organisation Alphabet Inc.
Page is the co-creator of a search ranking algorithm for Google for which he received the Marconi Prize with co-writer Brin. As of November 2023, Page has an estimated net worth of $116 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. According to Investopedia Larry Page’s net worth is around 126 million.
Family
Lawrence Edward Page was born on March 26, 1973, in Lansing Michigan. His mother is Jewish, His father, Carl Victor Page Sr., earned a PhD in computer science from the University of Michigan. BBC reporter Will Smale described him as a ‘pioneer in computer science and artificial intelligence’.
Education
Page attended Okemos Montessori School in Okemos, Michigan, From ages 2 to 7. He attended East Lansing High School and graduated in 1991. Page received a Bachelor of Science with a major in computer engineering with honors from the University of Michigan in 1995.
And got his master's degree, Master of Science in computer science from Stanford University in 1998. Page attended PhD program in computer science at Stanford University.
Developing The PageRank Algorithm
Page Focused on the problem of finding out which web pages linked to a given page, considering the number and nature of such backlinks as valuable information for that page. Brin and Page developed the PageRank algorithm and realized it could be used to build a search engine.
Combining their ideas, they began to utilize Page’s dormitory room as a machine laboratory. In August 1996, the initial version of Google was made available to internet users. In 1998 Brin and Page incorporated Google, Inc. with the initial domain name of ‘Googol’ By June 2000, Google had indexed one billion internet.
Page is an investor in Tesla Motor Co-Founded by friend and fellow billionaire Elon Musk. He has invested in renewable energy technology. He is also a strategic backer in the Opener and Kitty Hawk startups, developing aerial vehicles for consumer travel.
8. Larry Ellison
Lawrence Joseph Ellison is an American businessman and entrepreneur who co-founded the software company Oracle Corporation. Joseph Ellison was the Oracle’s chief executive officer from 1977 to 2014. Now he is in the position of this company as chief technology officer and executive chairman.
Ellison is also known for his ownership of 98% of Lana’i. Which is the sixth-largest island in the Hawaiian Islands.
Family
Ellison was born on August 17, 1944, in New York City. His biological father was an Italian-American and United States Army Air Corps pilot. After Ellison contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother gave him to her aunt and uncle for adoption. He did not meet his biological mother again until he was 48. Ellison was raised in a Reform Jewish home by his adoptive parents.
Education
Ellison’s schooling was at South Shore High School in Chicago and later, he was admitted to the University of Illinois at Urbana he was named Science Student of the Year. Because of the death of his adoptive mother in his sophomore year, he withdrew without taking final exams.
Career
While working at Ampex in the early 1970s, he was influenced by Edgar F. Codd’s research on relational database design for IBM. This white paper led in 1977 to the formation of the company, which later became Oracle.
In the 1970s, Ellison began working for Ampex Corporation. His projects included a database for the CIA, which he named ‘Oracle’. In 1977, he founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL) with two partners and an investment of $2000, where $1200 of the money was his.
In 1979 the company renamed itself Relational Software Inc. The initial release of the Oracle Database in 1979 was called Oracle version 2, there was no Oracle version 1. In 1983 the company officially became Oracle Systems Corporation.
Ellison Yearly income
In 2005, Oracle Corporation paid Ellison a $975,000 salary, a $6,500,000 bonus, and other compensation of $955,100. In 2007 Ellison earned a total compensation of $61,180,524 which included a base salary of $1,000,000 and a cash bonus of $8,369, 000. And in 2008 he earned a total compensation of $84,598,700.
In the year 2009 he made $56.8 million. In 2006, he ranked as the richest Californian. On January 21, 2010, Oracle acquired the Sun Corporation.
9. Sergey Brin
Sergey Mikhailovich Brin is an American businessman best known for Co-founding Google with Larry Page. Brin was the president of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. till December 3, 2019. According to Bloomberg Billionaires, Sergey Brin is the ninth richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $120 billion.
Family
Sergey Mikhailovich Brin was born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow in the Soviet Union. His parents Mikhail and Eugenia Brin both graduated from Moscow State University (MSU). His father is a retired mathematics professor at the University of Maryland. His mother is a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Education
Brin attended elementary school at Paint Branch Montessori School in Adelphi, Maryland. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the Department of Computer Science from the University of Maryland in 1993.
Brin began his graduate study in computer science at Stanford University on a graduate fellowship from the National Science Foundation and received an M.S. in computer science in 1995. As of 2008, he was on leave from his Ph.D. studies at Stanford University.
Publication of first Research
During an Orientation for new students at Stanford, he met Larry Page. Then they became intellectual soul-mates and close friends.
Brin’s focus was on developing data mining systems, while Page’s was on extending ‘The concept of inferring the importance of a research paper from its citations in other papers’. They authored a paper together titled ‘The Anatomy of a Large-scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine’.
Career
To convert the backlink data gathered by BackRub’s web crawler into a measure of importance for a given web page. Brin and Page developed an algorithm and named PageRank. They realized that it could be used to build a search engine.
The new algorithm introduces new technology that analyzes the relevance of the backlinks that connect one web page to another. And allowed the number of likes, and their rank, to determine the rank of the page.
In June 2008, Brin invested $4.5 million in Space Adventures, a Virginia-based space tourism company. Brin and Page jointly own a customized Boeing 767-200 and a Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet. Brin is a backer of LTA Research and Exploration LLC, an airship maker company.
10. Warren Buffett
Warren Edward Buffett is an American Businessman, investor, and philanthropist. Currently, Warren Buffett serves as the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett is one of the best-known investors in the world. He is the tenth-richest person in the world, his net worth is $110 billion.
Early Life
Buffett was born in Omaha Nebraska on August 30, 1930. He is the son of US Congressman and businessman Howard Buffett. Before he graduated from the University of Nebraska at 19 he attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1947. He molded his investment philosophy around the concept of value investing pioneered by Benjamin Graham during his graduation from Columbia Business School.
Investment Career
Later he attended the New York Institute of Finance to focus on his economics background. Then he began various business ventures and investment partnerships, including one with Gramham. He created Buffett Partnership Lit, in 1956 his investment firm acquired a textile manufacturing firm, Berkshire Hathaway. In 1970 Buffett emerged as the company’s chairman and majority shareholder.
Buffett worked from 1951 to 1954 at Buffett-Falk & Co. as an investment salesman and from 1954 to 1956 at Graham-Newman Corp as a security analyst. In 1957 Buffett operated three investment partnerships. In 1961, Buffett revealed that 35% of the partnership’s assets were invested in the Sanborn Map Company.
In 1962 Buffett became a millionaire because of this partnership which in January 1960 had an excess of $7,178,500 of which over $1,025,000 belonged to Buffett.
Final Thoughts
The list of the top 10 richest people in the world may change at any time, depending on their current market position. However, the top 10 wealthiest people above have made their work sustainable over the years. They have contributed to the world with new inventions and are providing a good amount of charity funds.
FAQ | Top 10 Richest People in the World
Who is the world's wealthiest woman?
Françoise Bettencourt Meyers of France is the wealthiest lady. She's $80 billion on 4 April 2024. Her wealth comes from the stock of cosmetics behemoth L'Oréal she inherited from her late mother. The company's founder was her grandpa.
Who makes the most money per hour?
Divide earnings by time worked to get a rate for salaried jobs. If you're wondering what profession pays the most per hour, anesthesiologists come out with a mean compensation of nearly $125.
