Musk Earned More in 2025 Than Most People Make in a Lifetime!

In 2025, thanks to the booming development of artificial intelligence and the tech sector, the global billionaire class achieved record wealth growth.

 

According to Forbes statistics, over the past year, more than 340 new billionaires emerged worldwide — a 50% increase over the five-year average. Total billionaire wealth reached $18.7 trillion, up $3.6 trillion YoY and $10 trillion since 2020.

 

The top tier of the wealth rankings saw massive gains. As of now, the number of centibillionaires (those worth $100 billion or more) has reached a record 19 — six years ago, only Amazon’s Jeff Bezos had crossed that threshold.

 

Statistics also show the world’s top 10 billionaires added over $700 billion in wealth over the past year, with top-ranked Musk alone gaining $330.9 billion — an increase more than $70 billion greater than second-place Larry Page’s total net worth. This means Musk accumulated more wealth in 2025 than anyone else on Earth has in their entire lifetime.

 

Musk’s extraordinary one-year leap stems from sharp valuation surges in Tesla (where he holds shares) and his private company SpaceX — especially SpaceX, whose valuation more than doubled this year to $800 billion.

 

The billionaire who set the single-day wealth gain record this year was not Musk. On September 10, Oracle co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison gained nearly $100 billion as Oracle shares surged 36% — a world record.

 

Oracle later fell ~40% on disappointing earnings, but Ellison’s wealth is still up nearly $40 billion from year-start.

 

Beyond these two tech investment winners, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin also saw explosive wealth growth from AI. Google’s recent Gemini 3 model release drew massive market attention and drove significant share gains.

 

Meanwhile, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang rocketed up the wealth rankings on Nvidia’s stellar performance. Nvidia shares rose steadily this year (+30.37% YTD), making it the world’s most valuable listed company at $4.58 trillion market cap.

 

Beyond these familiar names, a large portion of this year’s new billionaires come from the AI industry — nearly two-thirds are self-made, such as DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng in China and seven key employees who left OpenAI this year.