In 2024, the total value of the fortunes of the 500 richest people on the planet, tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, reached a new record. Indeed, it crossed the $10,000 billion mark on December 11, before falling slightly to $9,800 billion at the close on Wall Street on December 30.
This increase is mainly attributed to the increase in the stock values of American technology companies. The total fortunes of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (the founders of Google) have increased by more than 600 billion dollars. According to Bloomberg, this represents 43% of the $1.5 trillion increase in the combined fortunes of the Top 500.
The fortune that increased the most in 2024 is that of Elon Musk, who is still the richest person on the planet. Thanks to the increase in the values of Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, he saw his fortune increase from $213 billion at the start of the year to $442.1 billion at the end of the year. And on December 17, the gap between the richest person on the planet and the second richest person (Jeff Bezos) was $237 billion, a record.
Winners and losers
More generally, Bloomberg recalls that in 2024, the S&P 500 gained 24%, boosted by big technology companies like Tesla, Nvidia, Meta, etc. The index also rose sharply after the announcement of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election. Bloomberg also mentions an increase in the fortunes of Chinese billionaires, such as Pony Ma, CEO of Tencent, or Lei Jun, president of Xiaomi.
On the other hand, the year 2024 was less good for French luxury billionaires. The American agency explains that after years of growth driven by the pandemic, the luxury market has experienced a slowdown.
- In 2024, the total value of the fortunes of the 500 richest people on the planet will exceed 10,000 billion dollars
- This increase is largely attributed to a breakthrough by technology companies
- Elon Musk’s fortune increased from $213 billion at the start of the year to $442.1 billion at the end of the year
