Top 20 billionaires in the world in 2026

The wealth held by the world's top 20 billionaires - about $3.8 trillion - is greater than the GDP of most countries on Earth, according to visualcapitalist.com, which notes that these fortunes have grown at an astonishing pace since 2020. At the time, Jeff Bezos, the American entrepreneur who founded the online retail company Amazon.com, was the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $145 billion. Today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk's fortune is almost five times that figure.

• Musk - the first person in history with a fortune of over 700 billion dollars

The cited source presents the ranking of the richest people in the world in 2026, according to Forbes data from January 6, and it shows that Elon Musk, placed in first position, has a fortune of 714.2 billion dollars. Musk is the first person in history to exceed the threshold of 700 billion dollars.

Since 2020, Musk's fortune has grown at an explosive pace, almost 30 times. Among Musk's largest sources of wealth is his $ 366 billion stake in SpaceX (a company dedicated to the creation of vehicles for transportation into outer space), which is currently valued at $ 800 billion. In 2026, its valuation could reach $ 1.5 trillion in a potential mega-initial public offering (IPO).

Google co-founder Larry Page is in second place with a net worth of $257.7 billion. In 2025, shares of Alphabet, the company that owns Google, rose by 63%, significantly increasing Page's wealth.

Third place is held by Jeff Bezos, with $251.4 billion, and in fourth place is Larry Ellison, the founder and head of the technology company Oracle, with $242.6 billion. In places 5-7 we see Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, with $237.8 billion; Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and chairman of the Facebook network (Meta), with $226.5 billion; and Bernard Arnault, chairman of the board of directors of the French luxury conglomerate LVMH, and family, with $193.9 billion.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is worth $162.5 billion, making him the eighth richest person in the world. Nvidia shares have surged more than 4,200% in the past seven years, making Huang the fastest-growing billionaire among the top 20 billionaires.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett is in ninth place with a net worth of $147.5 billion, while Amancio Ortega, the founding chairman of Inditex (owner of Zara), is in tenth place with $147 billion.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates' net worth, by comparison, has remained virtually unchanged since 2020 ($103.8 billion). That year, Gates was the second-richest person in the world, but he has since slipped to 18th place. This was largely due to the transfer of tens of billions of dollars to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and philanthropic causes.

• Technology created 401 billionaires in 2025

The technology sector had 401 billionaires in 2025, nearly 14% of the global total, after an increase of 59 people from the previous year, according to Forbes. After a difficult period in 2022-2023, the sector enjoyed a sharp recovery as artificial intelligence-based productivity tools, cloud demand and a shortage of semiconductors boosted valuations. In 2025, the richest tech billionaire was Mark Zuckerberg. Over the past year, Zuckerberg's AI ambitions have been fully revealed: aggressively acquiring talent to find the next big AI breakthrough.

At the same time, a new tech billionaire now works for Zuckerberg, Alexandr Wang, who will be Meta's AI chief from 2025, leading Meta Superintelligence Labs.

Last year, the finance and investment industry was the largest sector generating billionaires, with 464 people (15.3% of the year's total).