Top 10 richest people in 2025: Who gained and who lost the most?

While there were ups and downs throughout 2025, most of the world’s richest ended the year wealthier than they began.

This year, tech billionaires rode the AI and innovation boom, with Tesla/Space X CEO Elon Musk solidifying his lead.

This top-10 rich list reflects the hyper-dynamic billionaire landscape — where innovation, breakthroughs, and major IPOs continue to reshape who leads global wealth rankings.

According to multiple real-time billionaire trackers and rankings from Forbes and the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 2025 has been a roller-coaster year for the ultra-wealthy — with tech fortunes surging, stocks swinging wildly, and some major shifts in the leaderboard.

Here’s a snapshot of the dramatic swings in wealth among the globe’s wealthiest this year.

Top 10 richest people in the world (2025)

1. Elon Musk – ~$684 billion (Tesla, SpaceX)

2. Larry Page – ~$252 billion (Alphabet/Google)

3. Larry Ellison – ~$240 billion (Oracle)

4. Jeff Bezos – ~$235 billion (Amazon)

5. Sergey Brin – ~$233 billion (Alphabet/Google)

6. Mark Zuckerberg – ~$225 billion (Meta Platforms)

7. Bernard Arnault & family – ~$193 billion (LVMH)

8. Jensen Huang – ~$154 billion (Nvidia)

9. Warren Buffett – ~$148 billion (Berkshire Hathaway)

10. Steve Ballmer – ~$145 billion (Microsoft)

These figures come from Forbes’s real-time tracking as of mid-December 2025, reflecting live market values of assets, stock performance, and other holdings.

Who gained in 2025

• Elon Musk: Despite market ups and downs earlier in the year, Musk’s net worth continues growing, boosted by surging valuations at SpaceX and Tesla — and he edges closer to a historic $1 trillion valuation.
  

• Alphabet co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin saw huge gains thanks to a rally in Alphabet stock, adding tens of billions to their combined fortunes, as per Business Insider.
  

• Bernard Arnault & family and Steve Ballmer also enjoyed net worth increases as luxury goods and tech stocks climbed throughout the year.
  

Who lost ground

• Some tech titans faced dips in 2025, with market volatility affecting giants like Meta and parts of the Amazon empire at times — even though many still finished the year strongly, including Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Forbes noted.
  

• Larry Ellison briefly took the world’s #1 spot in September after a surge in Oracle’s share price, only to lose some of that gain later as stocks dipped again.
  

• Other billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg also saw periods of wealth contraction earlier in the year before rebound rallies took hold.

• Bill Gate, Microsoft founder, fell off the Top 10 rich list: His net worth fell sharply primarily because of a recalculation of his total assets and charitable contributions, as tracked by Bloomberg Billionaires Index. A significant revision — in part to better reflect his actual holdings and philanthropic commitments — caused his reported fortune to fall from previous highs (around $175 billion) to roughly $124 billion, dropping him out of the top 10.