Billionaire Elon Musk returned to the top spot in February and May of 2023, when he was crowned the world’s richest person.
Elon Musk and the other nine richest persons on the planet experienced a sharp increase in wealth in 2023 as a result of a robust stock market and skyrocketing technology stock values.
What Happened: The S&P 500 concluded 2023 with a run of weeks in which it saw positive increases, which contributed to a further increase in the stock prices of numerous large caps at the end of the year. Following a 19% decline in 2022, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF—which tracks the S&P 500—saw a 24% increase in 2023.
A total of $465.4 billion was added to the wealth of the world’s top 10 richest persons in 2023 as a result of the skyrocketing stock prices.
Here are the top 10 richest people in the world to close out 2023 and a look at how much their wealth increased, as reported by Bloomberg.
- Elon Musk, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO, $229 billion, +$92.0 billion
- Bernard Arnault, LVMH (OTC:LVMUY)(OTC:LVMHF) CEO, $179 billion, +$17.0 billion
- Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder, $177 billion, +$69.9 billion
- Bill Gates, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) co-founder, $141 billion, +$31.5 billion
- Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO, $131 billion, +$45.0 billion
- Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) CEO, $128 billion, +$82.5 billion
- Larry Page, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) co-founder, $126 billion, +$43.5 billion
- Larry Ellison, Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) co-founder, $123 billion, +$31.1 billion
- Sergey Brin, Alphabet Inc co-founder, $120 billion, +$40.6 billion
- Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE:BRK-A) (NYSE:BRK-B) CEO, $120 billion, +$31.0 billion
With NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) currently valued at $1.22 trillion, the combined net worth of the top 10 billionaires at the end of 2023 would make them the sixth-largest corporation, valued at $1.47 trillion. The average wealth of the ten billionaires is $147.4 billion.
In 2023, the billionaires witnessed an increase in wealth of $465.4 billion, or an average of $46.5 billion. The combined gains of the top ten wealthiest individuals exceeded Walmart Inc.’s market value (NYSE:WMT). The retail behemoth is worth $424.4 billion.
Overvaluing Walmart coincides with Jeff Bezos’s Amazon.com continuing to dominate the e-commerce space and put serious pressure on brick-and-mortar shops like Walmart and others in a similar situation.
In addition, the market capitalizations of significant companies like Novo Nordisk, Broadcom Inc., Samsung, Mastercard, and ExxonMobil were surpassed by the $465.4 billion accumulated by the top 10 billionaires.
Why It Matters: The wealthiest 14 individuals all increased their fortunes in 2023, so it’s not just the top 10 that benefited. Carlos Slim, who is placed eleventh, gained $31.0 billion in wealth by the end of the year, totaling $105 billion.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was among the year’s top gainers outside of the top 10, thanks to the chip company’s skyrocketing valuation and its market capitalization surpassing $1 trillion for the first time.
With a wealth of $34.4 billion, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao was also a high gainer in 2023, gaining $21.8 billion and finishing the year ranked 42nd.
Gautam Adani was the world’s 15th richest person at the end of 2023, having lost $36.2 billion, making him the richest person to decline the most among all time. Short reports on Adani and his businesses were published in 2023.
Of the thirty wealthiest people on the planet, only six saw their fortune decline in 2023. In a similar vein, 11 of the world’s 50 richest persons saw a decrease in their fortune in the previous year.
Charles Koch, Jacqueline Badger Mars, and John Mars were among the other decliners in the top 50, with losses of $4.63 billion, $8.16 billion, and $8.16 billion, respectively.