The total wealth exceeds 10 trillion! In 2024, the world's 500 richest individuals are even more "wealthy," led by Musk and other Silicon Valley tycoons, with Trump also being a winner
The surge in U.S. tech stocks has driven the wealth of eight Silicon Valley tycoons, including Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, Jeff Bezos, and Larry Ellison, to increase by over $600 billion in a year, accounting for 43% of the total new wealth among the world's 500 richest individuals. Elon Musk alone saw his wealth soar by over $200 billion. Thanks to the stock price of his media company DJT2024 rising over 90%, Donald Trump's wealth has reached a personal record high
2024 created a milestone in wealth creation: the combined wealth of the top 500 on the global wealth list surpassed the USD 10 trillion mark.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows that the first beneficiaries of this wave of wealth creation were the Silicon Valley tycoons driven by the strong rise of U.S. tech stocks. Among the USD 1.5 trillion increase in the wealth of the 500 global billionaires in 2024, eight individuals, including Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Dell founder Michael Dell, and Google's two co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, contributed over USD 600 billion, accounting for about 43%.
Among them, Musk, known as Trump's "first brother," was the most extravagant, having spent over USD 200 million on Trump's presidential campaign. Nearly three weeks ago, Wall Street Insight mentioned that on December 11, Tesla's stock price reached a historic high for the first time in three years, and the Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed that Musk's net worth exceeded USD 400 billion, making him the first person in the world to surpass USD 400 billion, setting a new record for the highest asset of the world's richest person.
Documents submitted to regulators show that Musk holds over 411 million shares of Tesla stock and about 304 million performance-based stock options. Tesla stocks and options account for about three-quarters of his personal wealth. He also holds significant stakes in SpaceX, the social media platform X, and the AI startup xAI. As a major contributor to Trump's presidential election victory, Musk's companies saw their valuations soar after the election. Since the election day on November 5, as of the market close on December 11, Tesla's stock price has risen approximately 69%, with its market value increasing by over USD 556 billion in five weeks.
Bloomberg estimates that Musk's personal wealth reached an unprecedented USD 442.1 billion by the end of the year, an increase of USD 213 billion from the beginning of 2024, effectively doubling. On December 17, Musk's wealth was USD 237 billion more than Jeff Bezos, who ranked second on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, creating the largest gap between the top two billionaires.
As a major winner in this wave of artificial intelligence (AI) frenzy, AI chip giant NVIDIA continued its momentum of doubling stock prices in 2024. In June 2024, NVIDIA's market value surpassed Microsoft and Apple to become the world's number one, and under this tailwind, Jensen Huang, who leads NVIDIA, was ranked the 11th richest person globally.
Another beneficiary of the AI boom, Oracle, saw its stock price rise nearly 60% this year, achieving its best annual performance since the 1999 dot-com bubble. Ellison's wealth increased by over USD 70 billion in 2024, frequently competing with Amazon's Bezos for the second place on the global billionaire list from September to November Trump's victory also fueled the rise of the U.S. stock market. On the first day after the election on November 6, the S&P 500 index not only reached a historic high but also surged over 2.5% in a single day, marking the best post-election performance in history. Based on the appreciation brought by the rise of the S&P, the net worth of billionaires increased to $505 billion within five weeks after the election, accounting for 34% of the annual increase.
Trump's election also drove a historic surge in cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin's trading price breaking $100,000 for the first time in history. Bloomberg reported that Zhao Changpeng, the founder of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, saw his personal wealth grow by 60% to $55 billion in 2024, while Brian Armstrong, co-founder of the leading U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, saw his net worth increase by over 50% in a year, reaching $11.1 billion.
Trump himself also profited immensely from the surge in Trump-related stocks. Thanks to the 95% increase in the stock price of his social media company Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (DJT) throughout the year, with a market value exceeding $7 billion, Trump's wealth reached a personal historic high in 2024.
In addition, Bloomberg also mentioned that the Chinese billionaires on the list performed better in 2024 than in the previous three years, with their combined wealth increasing by 14% in a year