10 Wealthiest People in the World in 2024

Some people swim in cash—no wonder they’re called billionaires. Their combined wealth amounts to a staggering $12.8 trillion! And that’s just 2,640 people in this elite flock! And that sum could’ve been larger if they used Pawns.app (maybe some do?)!

But that’s not all, folks. There’s an even smaller coterie of HNWIs who put a shade on the rest in this group. These are the top 10 wealthiest individuals out there, and together, they’re worth $1.44 trillion! So, who are these walking ka-chings, and what’s their secret? Let’s find out!

1. Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX — $257.7B

• Source of wealth: SpaceX, Tesla
• SpaceX and Tesla ownership stake: 44% of SpaceX, 25% of Tesla
• Age: 52
• Residence: Austin, Texas
• Top quote:  I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.

Who Is He?

The South African-born tech mogul Elon Musk has made a fortune as the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Inc.. He has conquered both the roads and the skies! And, of course, he also took former Twitter under his wing and co-founded some shiny corporate names: The Boring Company, OpenAI, xAI, and Neuralink.

Childhood and Education

Elon Musk is the son of Pretorian model Mayne and businessman/politician Errol Musk. He’s been an avid reader ever since his childhood. This kid was also quite ambitious, teaching himself programming from the VIC-20 user manual. He was never an exceptional student, though.

His uni days started early (before he was 18) and were quite eventful. He changed several prestigious universities and graduated from only one, the University of Pennsylvania, with a BA in physics and economics. In 1995, at the age of 24, the dude even dropped out of Stanford after two days of campus treatment. It was to co-found Zip2, a city guide software company that set him off for the millions.

Achievements and More

After eBay bought PayPal — an online child of Musk — he lent himself $100 million from the sales to found SpaceX in 2002. The same year, he became a US citizen. It was the company that almost had him go bankrupt after three failed attempts to launch the Falcon 1 rocket. However, the guy is now pioneering in crewed flights, reusable rockets, and a $843 million contract for an ISS deorbit.

Elon thinks he has Aspergers. Is that why his wealth keeps growing? Because he’s Starlink’s satellites, making the near skies starrier and Optimus, a humanoid under development. He once invested $6.35 million to become Tesla’s major shareholder and aspires to integrate the human brain with AI through Neuralink, a 2016 startup he’s invested $100 million in. And, apparently, he can’t wait to invest in India.

2. Jeff Bezos, Amazon — $215.9B

• Source of wealth: Amazon
• Amazon ownership stake: 10%
• Age: 60
• Residence: Seattle, Washington
• Top quote: It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.

Who Is He?

Jeff Bezos stands in line right behind Elon Musk, with a net worth shortage of just $41 billion. The founder (and former president and CEO) of Amazon also founded Blue Origin, an aerospace company that also offers suborbital spaceflights, and owns the Washington Post! Not bad, Jeff Bezos, and especially not when you have four kids.

Childhood and Education

Speaking of children, Jeff Bezos was a tech-proficient kid with an interest in sciences. Interestingly, he once threw together an electric alarm to stop his siblings from entering his room. Originally from Albuquerque, he, his mom, and his adoptive dad moved to Houston before moving to Miami, where Bezos went to high school.

His valedictorian speech about folks colonizing space and turning the Earth into a national park was quoted in the media. He’d later become a Bachelor of Science and Engineering at the University of Princeton with an impressive 4.2 GPA. He changed multiple careers befitting his high managerial and intellectual capacities before setting up his own online bookstore in 1994 — Amazon.

Achievements and More

Jeff didn’t ignore the 2300%-per-year growth of the internet. He went from investing $300,000 in Amazon to borrowing $2 billion from banks, to turning a profit of $35 million, to selling a couple of millions of stocks of his holding for millions of dollars. His financial moves around Amazon made him the world’s richest person in 2018, with a net worth of $112 billion.

Bezos’ hope to colonize the solar system lives through Blue Origin. To fund the company, he sells $1 in Amazon stock yearly, but that’s no problem for him — he once made $8.23 billion in a single day! The guy likes unusual dishes, watching Star Trek, and looking for old NASA rockets underwater, however. Fancy!

3. Bernard Arnault, LVMH — $190.8B

• Source of wealth: Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (LVMH)
• LVMH ownership stake: 47%
• Age: 75
• Residence: Paris, France
• Top quote: In the luxury business, you have to build on heritage.

Who Is He?

Bernard Arnault is the third richest person in 2024. He might not have a net worth greater than that of Jeff Bezos, but LVMH’s founder, chairman, and CEO has topped some impressive billionaires on the list, as well as the rest of us!

Childhood and Education

The career of Bernard Arnault, a businessman and avid art collector with an impressive net worth, was cooking in the early days of his childhood: his mom loved Dior! Once he graduated from the École Polytechnique, the best engineering school in France, he started working at his dad’s company, convincing his dad to shift the company’s focus to real estate. This marked the start of his career.

Then Bernard Arnault, a young real estate developer, took over Boussac Saint-Frères after overhearing the French government’s need to find someone to take charge of the textile conglomerate. Fun fact — the company owned Christian Dior, the assets of which Arnault sold almost entirely. And then it all got better: in three years, CD made $112 million in earnings and a revenue stream of $1.9 billion! Smart man.

Achievements and More

In 1987, our net worth giant formed LVMH, a conglomerate. He’d then spend $600 million and $500 million to become the company’s largest shareholder to strip Henry Racamier of his power and prevent the conglomerate’s dismantling. The rest of the story is about acquiring famous companies like Sephora and Emilio Pucci and making investments worth millions.

From 1988 to 2001, Bernard Arnault also invested in web companies, including Boo.com, Zebak, and Netflix. In 2018, the classically trained pianist led LVMH to record sales of €42.6 billion, making it the largest company by eurozone market capitalization, with a record of $382 billion (May 2021). Great!

4. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook — $185.7B

• Source of wealth: Facebook (Meta)
• Facebook ownership stake: 12%
• Age: 40
• Residence: Palo Alto, California
• Top quote: I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.

Who Is He?

Next on the list is Mark Zuckerberg, an American businessman and co-founder of the world’s largest social media platform, Facebook, and Meta Platforms, its parent company. He’s infamous for dropping out of Harvard to pursue his dreams of connecting the world and is a people lover at heart; he and his wife are co-founders of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization where they invest 99% of their multi-billion Facebook shared wealth — a lifetime commitment.

Childhood and Education

He was designing software in middle school and built a music player powered by machine learning in high school. The New Yorker programming prodigy also created Facemash, a super popular program that allowed students to choose the “hottest” person from several photos.

Achievements and More

The program was shut down and labeled inappropriate, but the FB vibes were there. In 2004, at the age of 19, Mark Zuckerberg launched FB together with his college roommates. As the current CEO of the company, he earns a $1 salary. Over the past decade, his wealth grew by more than $140 billion (his net worth in May 2014 was $26.1 billion). It’s worth noting that he lost $71 billion in 2022 after a decline in Meta’s stock price. However, he managed to boost his net worth again and pack a real estate portfolio worth $200 million in the meantime. 

Zuckerberg also launched Internet.org in 2013, an initiative aiming to provide billions of people in the world with internet. Another one of his achievements includes co-founding Breakthrough Starshot, a research and engineering project focused on reinventing interstellar light sails. He’s also made investments in companies like Bluefield, Intercom, and VeriSIM Life.

Family-wise, Mark met his now-wife Priscilla, with whom he has three daughters, at Harvard. The college sweethearts went on a nationwide tour in 2017 to get a word with some of their social media platform users — pretty cool. The main man also loves — and has trained martial arts and has two medals (gold and silver) as a white belter, in gi and no gi. He values family time, productivity, and also raises cattle — what a balance!

5. Larry Ellison, Oracle — $175.3B

• Source of wealth: Oracle
• Oracle ownership stake: 35%
• Age: 80
• Residence: Lanai, Hawaii
• Top quote: When I do something, it is all about self-discovery. I want to learn and discover my own limits.

Who Is He?

He looks super young for 80 and plays a crucial role in software company Oracle’s management (former CEO, now CTO and EC) — this is Larry Ellison in a nutshell. His net worth is slightly smaller than that of Mark Zuckerberg, but his financial status was high enough to grant him 98% of Lānaʻi, a large Hawaiian island he owns.

Childhood and Education

Larry Elisson is a born New Yorker. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a premed student and was named science student of the year. However, he quit after the death of his adoptive mother. He later attended the University of Chicago briefly, only to move to California to start a career as a computer programmer.

Achievements and More

After developing an interest in relational data systems, Larry Ellison founded Software Development Laboratories in 1977, later named Oracle Systems Corporation in 1983. This name came from the company’s flagship product, the Oracle Database. But things were challenging. The company’s marketing strategy almost made it bankrupt, and competition was harsh. In between a chain of occurrences in the relational database niche that led to Sybase and Informix’s defeat and fierce Ellison battling tech giants and becoming director of Apple Computers, Oracle finally established some market dominance.

In 2010, Oracle acquired tech company Sun Microsystems. Ellison’s net worth at the time was $28 billion; the Wall Street Journal named him the best-paid executive of the last decade, with his wealth increases in the following years regularly reported by Forbes.

The ferocious car, yacht, aircraft, and tennis lover became a director on the board of Tesla, Inc. in 2018 and left the role in 2022, owning 1.4% of the company’s shares. Ellison owns stakes in NetShite, Salesforce.Com, Astex Pharmaceuticals, and Quark Biotechnology Inc. And with AI shares spiking, he’s now reacher for over $14 billion!

6. Larry Page, Google — $155.7B

• Source of wealth: Alphabet, Google
• Alphabet ownership stake: 51% of voting shares and 12% of total shares with co-founder Sergey Brin
• Age: 51
• Residence: Palo Alto, California
• Top quote: If you’re changing the world, you’re working on important things. You’re excited to get up in the morning.

Who Is He?

Page is most known as the co-founder of Google and a former CEO of the company (1997-2001; 2011-2015). He’s, however, an American computer scientist and businessman who’s confounded Alphabet Inc., the second-largest tech company out there, and co-created the PageRank algorithm that estimates the value of Web pages (he and Sergey Brin co-wrote it and won the prestigious Marconi Prize for it). And, of course, he’s one of the 10 richest people on the planet.

Childhood and Education

In recent years, Page has stepped down from all executive positions — a decision he shares with his Google co-founding partner, Brin. But before that happened, this billionaire with a staggering net worth had to be born in Michigan to a family of avid computer scientists and pioneers in the field. No wonder he was using the Exidy Sorcerer for schoolwork and breaking things apart to see how they worked!

Page got his PhD in computer science at Stanford University. Theorizing that all internet links are citations that could be counted and qualified, he and Brim invented an initial version of a modern-day search engine, forever changing the concept of browsing. Google, Inc. was incorporated in 1998. The search engine indexed one billion URLs and became the most comprehensive one available at the time.

Achievements and More

Page first became a billionaire at 30, after Google’s initial IPO in 2004. He acquired Android for $50 million in 2005, and it paid off; by 2010, Android sales consisted of 17.2% of the handset market, topping Apple for the first time. Page also acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion, the platform’s future exponential growth making it a worthy move.

As a philanthropist interested in aerial vehicles and the positive socio-economic effects of advanced technologies, which is reflected in Google’s next-gen projects, like Google X, Google Fiber, Nest Labs, and Calico — an independent R&D biotechnology project launched by Page himself. He has invested in companies like Kitti Hawk, SpaceX, Consensus Space, Opener Inc., etc.

7. Sergey Brin, Google — $148.9B

• Source of wealth: Alphabet, Google
• Alphabet ownership stake: 51% of voting shares and 12% of total shares with co-founder Larry Page
• Age: 50
• Residence: Los Altos, California
• Top quote: You can make money without doing evil.

Who Is He?

As we go further into this list, it’s impossible not to stumble upon Sergey Brin. This American businessman and computer scientist once co-founded Google with Larry Page and was also president of its parent company, Alphabet Inc. Years after immigrating from the Soviet Union, he’d become a PhD candidate at Stanford, meet Page, and create a web search engine together with him at the garage of Susan Wojcicki. 

Childhood and Education

When your parents are Mikhail and Eugenia Brin, one a math professor at the University of Maryland in retirement and the other a researcher at NASA, you’re bright from the start. The Moscow-based family was forced to take on temporary jobs after applying for an exit visa in 1978 so they could leave the country. That is not equivalent to an outstanding net worth. However, they managed to emigrate to the USA, where Brin eventually enrolled at Stanford, receiving a graduate fellowship from the National Science Foundation and growing his own net worth later on.

Page and Brian’s soulmates-ship took time to develop, but it did, and the two buddies created the PageRank algorithm to measure the importance of backlink data gathered through their BackRub project. Later on, they’d use it to create a page-ranking search engine unlike any other available at that time in their dorm rooms! The initial version of Google was made available for public use in 1996, becoming a revolutionary product often compared to the inventor of the printer, Johannes Gutenberg.

Achievements and More

Apart from his Google adventures, Brin has also invested $4.5 million in the space tourism company Space Adventures and backs the LTA Research and Exploration airship company. He and Page also own a personalized Boeing 767-200 and a Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet equipped with NASA tech, all for scientific purposes. His net worth has grown from $111 billion in 2023 to $146 billion in 2024.

After Brin’s mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he’s made donations to encourage further scientific understanding of the disease. He’s donated over $1 billion to fund research feats, expressing his financial support to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, too.

8. Bill Gates, Microsoft — $134.4B

• Source of wealth: Microsoft
• Microsoft ownership stake: 1%
• Age: 68
• Residence: Medina, Washington
• Top quote: Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

Who Is He?

Bill Gates is most known for co-founding and being the president and CEO of Microsoft, as well as leading the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s. Once super focused on growing the company, he’s now fully dedicated to his charitable organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — the largest private charity on the planet. He’s switched to topics like global health, education, and climate change, leaving the board positions in both Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway.

Childhood and Education

Gates was born into a family of a prosperous lawyer (his dad) and a board of directors member at United Ways of America and First Intricate BancSystem (his mom). His school days were marked by cutting-edge tech like the General Electric computer, on which he’d written his first program. After graduating, he got enrolled in Harvard (and solved a pancake sorting unsolved combinatorics problem brilliantly) but dropped out to co-found Microsoft with his schoolmate Paul Allen.

It all started when, to gain the attention of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, Gates lied to the company, saying that he and Allen were working on a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800. They agreed to a demonstration, and the guys developed an Altair emulator with a BASIC interpreter in just a few weeks! Allen was hired, Gates took a leave from Harvard to help him around, and they named the partnership Micro-soft to drop the hyphen later, become Microsoft, and turn into an independent company based in Bellevue, Washington, in 1979. The company then launched the Windows OS for the first time in 1985 out of competitive reasons linked to Apple.

Achievements and More

As his net worth would dictate, Bill Gates will show up in the Forbs world’s top billionaires list for the first time in 1987. Not only is he one of the richest people out there, but he’s been named the world’s wealthiest person each year from 1995 to 2017, excluding the year 2008 and the quick period between 2010 and 2013. And as if that didn’t already cut it, Gates became the first centibillionaire in 1999, his fortune going over $100 billion!

Although Bill Gates is mainly focused on philanthropy nowadays, he has founded and is the chairman of many companies such as Gates Ventures, BEN, Breakthrough Energy, TerraPower, and Cascade Investment. He’s also continuously growing his multi-billion dollar investment portfolio, investing in companies like AutoNation (16% stake), Canadian National Railway (he’s the largest shareholder), and Earth Now. Still, he likes helping others most, so he’s pledged to give half of his fortune to philanthropic causes. Also, he’s made a massive contribution to eradicating the polio virus in Africa. Now, that’s a well-rounded man surrounded by a gigantic net worth! 

9. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft — $133.7B

• Source of wealth: Microsoft
• Microsoft ownership stake: 4%
• Age: 68
• Residence: Hunts Point, Washington
• Top quote: There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.

Who Is He?

Steve Ballmer is one of the richest people on the planet. He owns the Los Angeles Clippers, an NBA-league basketball team — an ownership that was well received publically, primarily because he acquires superstar players. He was once the CEO of Microsoft (2000-2014) — a move that multiplied the company’s profits and sales but got it missing on significant tech trends — and has co-founded the Ballmer Group, an investment company focusing on philanthropy.

Childhood and Education

Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a father who was a manager at Ford Motors and a mom who is related to comedian Gilda Radner. He eventually became a member of the board of directors at the Detroit Country Day School, which is the school where he graduated as a valedictorian. He is the first in his family to have graduated college with a BA in applied mathematics at Harvard. According to his Putnam Competition score, he was better at math than his fellow sophomore, Bill Gates!

Achievements and More

Gates probably acknowledged Ballmer’s potential and decided to make him the first business manager of Microsoft in 1980 for a $50,000 salary and 5-10% of the company. We know almost one of the $1 billion of his net worth comes from him selling 39.3 million of his shares for $955 million in 2003! But more importantly, Ballmer got to be all the best Microsoft ever offered: a CEO, an Executive Vice President for Sales and Support, a president, and led the company’s development of the .NET Framework.

Apart from inspiring many viral videos, Ballmer is credited for making great business moves that have significantly increased Microsoft’s profits. He sought to settle the lawsuits their competitors and the government filed against them, required business justification for new products, significantly improved the product lineup, acquired Skype, etc. Ultimately, under his leadership, the company’s net income increased by 215% to $23 billion!

On the other side of life, Ballmer is married and has three children. He’s barred both his family and the players on his NBA team from using Apple products. And he is a philanthropist, one of his and his wife’s most notable donations being the $50 million to the University of Oregon. In 2017, he launched USAFacts.org with a $10 million contribution to keep people informed on government revenue, spending, and societal impact. P. S. More than 90% of those billions of this golf buff’s net worth are invested in Microsoft stock! 

10. Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway — $129.8B

• Source of wealth: Berkshire Hathaway
• Berkshire Hathaway ownership stake: 30.71%
• Age: 93
• Residence: Omaha, Nebraska
• Top quote: I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So, I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business.

Who Is He?

Warren Buffett is last on our list, but his net worth is not less impressive than the ones we already covered. He’s missing a few billion to be the world’s richest person, but he is undoubtedly an incredible businessman, a devoted philanthropist, and one of the world’s best investors. More so, he’s also the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a multinational conglomerate holding company that enriches the world with its many products and services.

Childhood and Education

Buffet was born in Omaha, Nebraska. His dad was the US congressman and businessman Howard Buffet, which explains his interest in investing from an early age. At the age of 19, he graduated from the University of Nebraska and then Columbia Business School. This was the place where his notable investment philosophy bloomed; he embraced the concept of value investing, continuously advocating that one should mind the value of one’s purchases.

Achievements and More

The pioneer of this philosophy is Benjamin Graham, with who Warren Buffett will have an investment partnership with. He took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965; when that happened, the stock closed at $18 per share. Nowadays, It trades as high as $616,000 per class-A share. Also, the conglomerate’s insurance float has increased from $19 million in 1967 to $169 billion in 2023. According to his last letter to the shareholders, ever since he took Berkshire Hathaway under his leadership, the stock has compounded at a 19.8% annual rate.

Buffet is a prominent philanthropist and has made countless of donations throughout his life. He and Bill Gates founded The Giving Pledge in 2010, a campaign where billionaires pledge to donate half or more of their wealth to charitable causes. And this guy has agreed to give as much as 99% of his!

In the past year, Buffet’s net worth has increased by about $15 billion. Although he was worth $20,000 at 21, $140,000 by 26, and $1 million by 30, he is now at the top of the top. He accumulated as much as 99% of his fortune after turning 50, and he wasn’t a billionaire until turning 56. His secret? Be patient because money takes patience! And, of course, safe investing. This Coke drinker with bad diet habits has shares at Bank of America (1.03 billion), Apple (789.4 million), and, of course, Coca-Cola (400 million), and that’s to scratch the surface!

Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?

The financial elite could welcome some more members to its circles! If we ever talk to Ballmer or Buffet, we’ll recommend the Pawns crew! 🙂 In the meantime, you, guys, should keep building your financial habits and stay prepared for great opportunities with Pawns.app.
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