Most Richest People in the World 2026. TOP 50 Billionaires List (May)

The world’s Richest People in 2026 (the number of billionaires in the world 3.030 individuals) represent almost $16 trln in wealth. The global billionaire population continued to grow in 2026, increasing by 5%. Beinsure Media has analysed the Forbes Billionaires Index data and presents a ranking of the world’s richest people as of May 2026.

The individuals on this list belong to an even more exclusive club and wield still more power. Many are founders of technology giants, with much of their wealth still invested in the companies they started.

Billionaires play an outsized role in shaping the global economy, politics, and philanthropy. Details about the calculations are provided in the net worth analysis on each billionaire’s profile page.

Most people have a pretty good idea, even if they’re not an entrepreneur or interested in the subject at all, for that matter.

These billionaires can, however, still borrow against that wealth to avoid selling stock, deferring (or eliminating for heirs) taxes on unrealized capital gains in the process.

Multi-billionaires can also take advantage of a panoply of tax deductions to offset reported income, leaving some on this list paying no income tax in recent years (see also TOP 100 Richest People in 2026: Bloomberg Billionaires Index).

10 Richest People in the World in 2026

TOP 50 World’s Richest People 2026

№	NAME	WORTH	SOURCE
1	Elon Musk	$790B	Tesla, SpaceX
2	Larry Page	$314B	Google
3	Sergey Brin	$290B	Google
4	Jeff Bezos	$275B	Amazon
5	Larry Ellison	$217B	Oracle
6	Mark Zuckerberg	$209B	Facebook
7	Michael Dell	$178B	Dell Tech
8	Jensen Huang	$172B	Nvidia
9	Rob Walton	$149B	Walmart
10	Jim Walton	$147B	Walmart
11	Bernard Arnault	$143B	LVMH
12	Warren Buffett	$140B	Berkshire Hathaway
13	Alice Walton	$137B	Walmart
14	Amancio Ortega	$134B	Zara
15	Steve Ballmer	$132B	Microsoft
16	Carlos Slim Helu	$123B	Telecom
17	Changpeng Zhao	$110B	Binance
18	Michael Bloomberg	$109B	Bloomberg LP
19	Bill Gates	$103B	Microsoft
20	Mukesh Ambani	$98B	Diversified
21	Francoise Bettencourt Meyers	$93B	L’Oréal
22	Thomas Peterffy	$93B	Discount brokerage
23	Giancarlo Devasini	$89B	Tether, Bitfinex
24	Julia Koch	$81B	Koch Industries
25	Gautam Adani	$78B	Infrastructure
26	Charles Koch	$74B	Koch Industries
27	Zhang Yiming	$69B	TikTok
28	Robin Zeng	$68B	Batteries
29	Jeff Yass	$67B	Trading
30	Zhong Shanshan	$67B	Beverages
31	Masayoshi Son	$66B	Telecom, Investments
32	Tadashi Yanai	$64B	Fashion
33	Dieter Schwarz	$60B	Retail
34	Germán Larrea Mota Velasco	$59B	Mining
35	Ken Griffin	$50B	Hedge funds
36	Lukas Walton	$50B	Walmart
37	Ma Huateng	$49B	Online games
38	Li Ka-shing	$49B	Diversified
39	Giovanni Ferrero	$48B	Nutella
40	John Mars	$47B	Candy, Pet food
41	Jacqueline Mars	$47B	Candy, Pet food
42	Iris Fontbona	$46B	Mining, beverages
43	Mark Mateschitz	$45B	Red Bull
44	Rafaela Aponte-Diamant	$44B	Shipping
45	Andrea Pignataro	$42B	Financial software
46	Klaus-Michael Kuehne	$40B	Infrastructure
47	Thomas Frist	$40B	Hospitals
48	Idan Ofer	$40B	Shipping
49	Alain Wertheimer	$39B	Chanel
50	Gerard Wertheimer	$39B	Chanel

Today’s Billionaires: Winners and Losers

Billionaires List by Country in 2026

• Richest People in the United States
• Richest People in the United Kingdom
• Richest People in Canada
• Richest People in Australia
• Richest People in China
• Richest People in France
• Richest People in Germany
• Richest People in Hong Kong
• Richest People in Italy
• Richest People in Sweden
• Richest People in Switzerland
• Richest People in India
• Richest People in Indonesia

TOP 25 World’s Billionaires List 2026

All the statistics given in this article in regard to individuals’ net worth estimates were originally sourced from Forbes.

There’s been a huge fluctuation in the net worth of these billionaires in the past year. But, you can find out more about that below.

1. Elon Musk net worth — $790 bn

• Age: 54
• Residence: Austin, Texas
• Source of Wealth: Tesla, SpaceX
• Tesla and SpaceX Ownership Stake: 25% of Tesla, 44% of SpaceX
• Other Assets: 9.2% of Twitter, Neuralink, The Boring Company

Elon Musk is a South-African-born, Canadian/American engineer, industrial designer, and tech entrepreneur. If you’re excited about the future of the world, you’ll probably have seen Musk everywhere.

Musk founded PayPal and is also the founder of Tesla Inc, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Neuralink.

As the co-founder and CEO of Tesla, Elon leads all product design, engineering and global manufacturing of the company’s electric vehicles, battery products and solar energy products.

Since the company’s inception in 2003, Tesla’s mission has been to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. The first Tesla product, the Roadster sports car, debuted in 2008, followed by the Model S sedan, which was introduced in 2012, and the Model X SUV, which launched in 2015.

As lead designer at SpaceX, Elon oversees the development of rockets and spacecraft for missions to Earth orbit and ultimately to other planets. In 2008, the SpaceX Falcon 1 was the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach orbit, and SpaceX made further history in 2017 by re-flying both a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft for the first time. Soon after, Falcon.

Building on these achievements, SpaceX is developing Starship – a fully reusable transportation system that will carry crew and cargo to the Moon, Mars and beyond ­– and Starlink, which will deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable.

SpaceX aims to make humans a multi-planet species by developing reusable rockets to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars.

Elon Musk, as CEO of Neuralink, is advancing high-bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to link the human brain with computers.

He also founded The Boring Company, which integrates efficient tunneling technology with an all-electric public transit system to reduce urban congestion and facilitate high-speed travel. The company constructed a 1.15-mile research tunnel in Hawthorne and is currently building the Vegas Loop at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Earlier, Elon co-founded and sold PayPal, a leading internet payment system, and Zip2, one of the first internet map and directions services.

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2. Larry Page net worth — $314 bn

• Age: 53
• Residence: Palo Alto, California
• Source of Wealth: Alphabet, Google
• Alphabet Ownership Stake: with a co-founder Sergey Brin, Page owns 51% of voting shares and less than 12% of total shares

Lawrence Edward Page is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin.

Page was the CEO (chief executive officer) of Google from 1997 until August 2001 (stepping down in favor of Eric Schmidt) then from April 2011 until July 2015 when he moved to become CEO of Alphabet Inc. (created to deliver “major advancements” as Google’s parent company), a post he held until December 4, 2019. He remains an Alphabet board member, employee, and controlling shareholder.

Larry Page was Google’s founding CEO and grew the company to more than 200 employees and profitability before moving into his role as President, Products in April 2001. He continues to share responsibility for Google’s day-to-day operations with Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin.

Creating Google helped Larry Page build a significant amount of wealth. He has also invested in flying car startups Kitty Hawk and Opener. Page is the co-creator and namesake of PageRank, a search ranking algorithm for Google. He received the Marconi Prize in 2004 with co-writer Brin.

The son of Michigan State University computer data science professor Dr. Carl Victor Page, Larry’s love of computers began at age six. While following in his father’s footsteps in academics, he became an honors graduate from the University of Michigan, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in engineering, with a concentration on computer engineering. During his time in Ann Arbor, Larry built an inkjet printer out of Lego™ bricks.

While in the Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford University, Larry met Sergey Brin and together they developed and ran Google, which began operating in 1998. Larry went on leave from Stanford after earning his master’s degree.

In 2002, Larry was named a World Economic Forum Global Leader for Tomorrow. He is a member of the National Advisory Committee (NAC) of the University of Michigan College of Engineering, and together with Co-Founder Sergey Brin, Larry was honored with the Marconi Prize in 2004.

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3. Sergey Brin net worth — $290 bn

• Age: 52
• Residence: Los Altos, California
• Source of Wealth: Alphabet, Google
• Alphabet Ownership Stake: with a co-founder Larry Page, Brin owns 51% of voting shares and less than 12% of total shares
• Other Assets: shares in Tesla and 23andMe

Sergey Brin is an American business magnate, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur, who co-founded Google with Larry Page. Brin was the president of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, until stepping down from the role on December 3, 2019. He and Page remain at Alphabet as co-founders, controlling shareholders, board members, and employees.

Brin immigrated to the United States with his family from the Soviet Union at the age of six. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Maryland, College Park, following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps by studying mathematics, as well as computer science.

After graduation, he enrolled in Stanford University to acquire a PhD in computer science. There he met Page, with whom he built a web search engine. The program became popular at Stanford, and they suspended their PhD studies to start up Google in Susan Wojcicki’s garage in Menlo Park.

Sergey Brin is a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship as well as an honorary MBA from Instituto de Empresa. It was at Stanford where he met Larry Page and worked on the project that became Google. Together they founded Google Inc. in 1998, and Sergey continues to share responsibility for day-to-day operations with Larry Page and Eric Schmidt.

Sergey’s research interests include search engines, information extraction from unstructured sources, and data mining of large text collections and scientific data.

He has published more than a dozen academic papers, including Extracting Patterns and Relations from the World Wide Web; Dynamic Data Mining: A New Architecture for Data with High Dimensionality, which he published with Larry Page; Scalable Techniques for Mining Casual Structures; Dynamic Itemset Counting and Implication Rules for Market Basket Data; and Beyond Market Baskets: Generalizing Association Rules to Correlations.

Sergey has been a featured speaker at several international academic, business and technology forums, including the World Economic Forum and the Technology, Entertainment and Design Conference.

He has shared his views on the technology industry and the future of search on the Charlie Rose Show, CNBC, and CNNfn. In 2004, he and Larry Page were named “Persons of the Week” by ABC World.

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4. Jeff Bezos net worth — $275 bn

• Age: 62
• Residence: Seattle, Washington
• Source of Wealth: Amazon
• Amazon Ownership Stake: 10%
• Other Assets: The Washington Post, Blue Origin, Bezos Expeditions, Altos Labs

Jeff Bezos founded e-commerce giant Amazon in 1994 out of his garage in Seattle. He stepped down as CEO to become executive chairman in July 2021. He now owns a bit less than 10% of the company.

Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin, a spaceflight company, in 2000. Shortly after, Blue Origin acquired a launch site in Texas and planned to launch the crewed suborbital spacecraft, New Shepard, in 2018 and the orbital launch vehicle, New Glenn, in 2020.

In 2013, Bezos purchased The Washington Post and its affiliated publications for $250 mn. By 2018, his net worth reached $112 bn, making him the wealthiest person globally.

Bezos has donated more than $400 mn worth of stock to nonprofits in 2022, though it’s unclear which organizations received those shares.

Bezos owns The Washington Post and Blue Origin, an aerospace company developing rockets; he briefly flew to space in one in July 2021.

Amazon began as an online bookstore and has since expanded to a variety of other e-commerce products and services, including video and audio streaming, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. It is the world’s largest online sales company, the largest Internet company by revenue, and the largest provider of virtual assistants and cloud infrastructure services through its Amazon Web Services branch.

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5. Larry Ellison net worth — $217 bn

• Age: 82
• Residence: Lanai, Hawaii
• Source of Wealth: Oracle
• Oracle Ownership Stake: 35%
• Other Assets: 3 mn shares of Tesla, $1 bn worth of real estate

Lawrence Joseph Ellison is an American business magnate and investor who is the co-founder, executive chairman, chief technology officer (CTO) and former chief executive officer (CEO) of the American computer technology company Oracle Corporation.

As of 13th January 2023, he was listed by Bloomberg Billionaires Index as the seventh-wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated fortune of $98.2 bn. Ellison is also known for his 98% ownership stake in Lanai, the sixth-largest island in the Hawaiian Archipelago.

To settle an insider trading lawsuit arising from his selling nearly $1 bn of Oracle stock, a court allowed Ellison to donate $100 mn to his own charitable foundation without admitting wrongdoing.

In 1992 Larry Ellison shattered his elbow in a high-speed bicycle crash. After receiving treatment at University of California, Davis, Ellison donated $5 mn to seed the Lawrence J. Ellison Musculo-Skeletal Research Center. In 1998, the Lawrence J. Ellison Ambulatory Care Center opened on the Sacramento campus of the UC Davis Medical Center.

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6. Mark Zuckerberg net worth — $209 bn

• Age: 42
• Residence: Palo Alto, California
• Source of Wealth: Facebook / Meta
• Facebook Ownership Stake: 12%

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder.

Zuckerberg attended Harvard University, where he launched Facebook in February 2004 with his roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

Originally launched to select college campuses, the site expanded rapidly and eventually beyond colleges, reaching one billion users by 2012. Zuckerberg took the company public in May 2012 with majority shares. In 2007, at age 23, he became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. He has used his funds to organize multiple philanthropic endeavors, including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Zuckerberg’s prominence in the technology industry has prompted political and legal attention. The founding of Facebook involved Zuckerberg in multiple lawsuits regarding the creation and ownership of the website. In 2013, he co-founded the pro-immigration lobbying group FWD.

On April 10 and 11, 2018, Zuckerberg testified before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation regarding the usage of personal data by Facebook in relation to the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data breach.

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7. Michael Dell net worth — $178 bn

• Age: 61
• Residence: Austin, Texas
• Source of Wealth: Dell Technologies
• Dell Technologies Ownership Stake: 52% ($40 Bn)
• Other Assets: MSD Capital, VMware

Michael Saul Dell is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies, one of the world’s largest technology infrastructure companies.

In 2011, his 243.35 mn shares of Dell stock were worth $3.5 bn, giving him 12% ownership of the company.

His remaining wealth of roughly $10 billion is invested in other companies and is managed by MSD Capital, which incorporates his initials. In January 2013 it was announced that he had bid to take Dell Inc. private for $24.4 bn in the biggest management buyout since the Great Recession. Dell Inc. officially went private in October 2013. The company once again went public in December 2018.

In 1998, Dell founded MSD Capital L.P. to manage his family’s investments. Investment activities include publicly traded securities, private equity activities, and real estate. The firm employs 80 people and has offices in New York, Santa Monica and London. Dell himself is not involved in day-to-day operations.

On March 4, 2004, Dell stepped down as CEO, but stayed as chairman of Dell Inc.’s board, while Kevin Rollins, then president and COO, became president and CEO. On January 31, 2007, Dell returned as CEO at the request of the board, succeeding Rollins.

In 2013, Michael Dell with the help of Silver Lake Partners, Microsoft, and a consortium of lenders took Dell, Inc. private.

The deal was reportedly worth $25 bn and faced difficulties during its execution. Notable resistance came from Carl Icahn, but after several months he stepped aside. Michael Dell received a 75% stake in the private company.

On October 12, 2015, Dell Inc. announced its intent to acquire the enterprise software and storage company EMC Corporation. At $67 bn, it has been labeled the “highest-valued tech acquisition in history”.

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8. Jensen Huang net worth — $172 bn

• Age: 62
• Residence: Taiwan
• Source of Wealth: owns approximately 3% of Nvidia, which went public in 199

Jen-Hsun Huang was born in Tainan, Taiwan, in 1963. His family first moved to Thailand when he was five years old; when he was 9, he and his brother were sent to the US to live with an uncle in Tacoma, Washington.

When he was ten years old, he lived in the boys dormitory with his brother at Oneida Baptist Institute while attending Oneida Elementary school in Oneida, Kentucky.

Jensen received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University in 1984, and his master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1992.

Jensen Huang cofounded graphics-chip maker Nvidia in 1993, and has served as its CEO and president since inception.

Huang owns approximately 3% of Nvidia, which went public in 1999. Under Huang, Nvidia became a dominant force in computer gaming chips and has expanded to design chips for data centers and autonomous cars.

He’s given Stanford $30 mn for an engineering center and, in 2022, $50 mn to Oregon State University for a namesake research center.

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9. Rob Walton net worth — $149 bn

• Age: 81
• Residence: Bentonville, Arkansas
• Source of Wealth: Walmart
• Walmart Ownership Stake: Walton family owns 50% of the Walmart shares
• Other Assets: Denver Broncos

Samuel Robson Walton is an American billionaire heir to the fortune of Walmart, the world’s largest retailer. He is the eldest son of Helen Walton and Sam Walton, and was chairman of Walmart from 1992 to 2015. He is also the principal owner of the National Football League (NFL)’s Denver Broncos.

In 1978, he left Tulsa to join Walmart as a senior vice president, and in 1982, he was appointed vice chairman.

He was named chairman of the board of directors on April 7, 1992, two days after his father’s death. Along with his siblings, he has pledged about $2 bn to the Walton Family Foundation from 2008 to 2013.

On June 7, 2022, an ownership group led by Walton entered into an agreement to purchase the Denver Broncos from the estate of Pat Bowlen for $4.65 bn, which set the record for the most expensive sale of a sports franchise in history, subject to approval from the NFL’s finance committee and a 3/4 majority of the full NFL ownership group.

Walton delegated most day-to-day authority to his son-in-law, Walmart chairman Greg Penner, who took over as CEO of the franchise and the public face of the ownership group.

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120. Jim Walton net worth — $147 bn

• Age: 78
• Residence: Bentonville, Arkansas
• Source of Wealth: Walmart
• Walmart Ownership Stake: Walton family owns 50% of the Walmart shares
• Other Assets: CEO of Waltons’ Arvest Bank Group, Inc.

James Carr Walton is an American businessman, currently the heir to the fortune of Walmart, the world’s largest retailer. He is the youngest son of Sam Walton.

In 1972, he joined Walmart and was involved in its real-estate dealings. After serving for four years, he moved to the family owned Walton Enterprises as president in 1975.

On September 28, 2005, Walton replaced his deceased brother, John, on the Wal-Mart Board of Directors. He is currently on the Strategic Planning and Finance committees.

He was CEO of his family owned Arvest Bank, until becoming Chairman of Arvest Bank, and Chairman of newspaper firm Community Publishers Inc. owned by Jim Walton himself (but founded by his father Sam Walton after acquiring the local newspaper the Benton County Daily Record, both operating in Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

He has pledged about $2 bn to the Walton Family Foundation along with his siblings from 2008 to 2013. In September 2016, Walton was reported to own over 152 mn of Walmart shares worth over $11 bn.

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11. Bernard Arnault net worth — $143 bn

• Age: 77
• Residence: Paris, France
• Source of Wealth: LVMH
• LVMH Ownership Stake: 47%
• Other Assets: Art collection with works of Picasso, Yves Klein, Henry Moore, yacht Symphony

Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault is a French business magnate, investor, and art collector. He is the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton SE, the world’s largest luxury goods company. Ultimately, the company was formed by merging the two businesses. Louis Vuitton is a very successful luxury fashion brand, and Moet Hennessey is the merged champagne and cognac manufacturers.

He began his professional career that year as an engineer with the Ferret-Savinel construction company and successively was promoted to various executive management positions before becoming Chairman in 1978.

Bernard Arnault remained there until 1984, when he undertook the reorganization of the Financière Agache holding company.

He restored the group’s profitability by pursuing a strategy to create the world’s leading luxury products company. During this time, he revitalized Christian Dior as the foundation of the new organization.

In 1989, Mr. Arnault became the majority shareholder of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton, establishing it as the world’s leading luxury products group. Since then, he has served as Chairman and CEO of the company.

Mr. Arnault also holds the position of President of the Board of Directors of Groupe Arnault S.E., his family holding company.

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12. Warren Buffett net worth — $140 bn

• Age: 95
• Residence: Omaha, Nebraska
• Source of Wealth: Berkshire Hathaway
• Berkshire Hathaway Ownership Stake: 30.71%

Warren Edward Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is the ex-chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett has been the chairman and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway since 1970. He has been referred to as the “Oracle” or “Sage” of Omaha by global media.

He is noted for his adherence to value investing, and his personal frugality despite his immense wealth.

He went on to graduate from Columbia Business School, where he molded his investment philosophy around the concept of value investing pioneered by Benjamin Graham. He attended New York Institute of Finance to focus on his economics background and soon after began various investment business partnerships, including one with Graham.

He created Buffett Partnership in 1956 and his investment firm eventually acquired a textile manufacturing firm called Berkshire Hathaway, assuming its name to create a diversified holding company, and later as the company’s chairman and majority shareholder in 1970. In 1978, Charlie Munger joined Buffett as vice-chairman.

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13. Alice Walton net worth — $137 bn

• Age: 77
• Residence: Fort Worth, Texas
• Source of Wealth: Walmart
• Walmart Ownership Stake: Walton family owns 50% of the Walmart shares
• Other Assets: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Alice Louise Walton is an American heiress to the fortune of Walmart. In September 2016, she owned over $11 bn in Walmart shares.

Walton was the first person to chair the Northwest Arkansas Council and played a major role in the development of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, which opened in 1998.

At the time, the business and civic leaders of Northwest Arkansas Council found a need for the $109 mn regional airport in their corner of the state.

Walton provided $15 mn in initial funding for construction. Her company, Llama Company, underwrote a $79.5 mn bond. The Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport Authority recognized Walton’s contributions to the creation of the airport and named the terminal the Alice L. Walton Terminal Building.

In the late 1990s, Llama Co. closed, and in 1998, Walton moved to a ranch in Millsap, Texas, named Walton’s Rocking W Ranch. An avid horse-lover, she was known for having an eye for determining which 2-month-olds would grow to be champion cutters.

Walton listed the farm for sale in 2015 and moved to Fort Worth, Texas, citing the need to focus on the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Bentonville, Arkansas, art museum she founded that opened in 2011.

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14. Amancio Ortega net worth — $134 bn

• Age: 90
• Residence: La Coruna, Spain
• Source of Wealth: Inditex
• Inditex Ownership Stake: 60%
• Other Assets: real estates in Madrid, London, Chicago, and New York, among others

Amancio Ortega Gaona is a Spanish billionaire businessman. He is the founder and former chairman of Inditex fashion group, best known for its chain of Zara and Bershka clothing and accessories shops. He is the head of the Ortega family and the second wealthiest retailer in the world.

Ortega announced his imminent retirement from Inditex, parent company of the Zara chain, stating that he would ask Inditex vice-president and CEO Pablo Isla to take his place as head.

In 2012 Ortega donated about €20 mn to Caritas Internationalis, a Roman Catholic relief organisation. He purchased the Torre Picasso skyscraper in Madrid. He also purchased the Epic Residences and Hotel in Miami, Florida.

In July 2017, for its second edition of the AEF awards, the Spanish Association of Foundations awarded Amancio Ortega in the 2017 Philanthropic Initiative category. He also donated 300 mn euros to fight cancer across Spain, which were invested in the purchase of 440 machines to detect the disease.

Recently, news indicate that he has bought the Troy Block complex, known to the public as one of the buildings where Amazon Seattle has its headquarters.

It was revealed in July 2020 that Ortega’s property holdings, through his investment company Pontegadea, were worth $17.2 bn.

Ortega is the executive chairman of Pontegadea, and real estate assets in his portfolio include Manhattan’s Haughwout Building and Southeast Financial Center. In 2019, the company completed a $72.5 mn deal for a downtown Chicago hotel, which followed purchases of a building in Washington’s central business district and two Seattle office buildings.

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15. Steve Ballmer net worth — $132 bn

• Age: 70
• Residence: Hunts Point, Washington
• Source of Wealth: Microsoft
• Microsoft Ownership Stake: 4% (333 mn shares)
• Other Assets: Los Angeles Clippers, Redmond

Steve Ballmer is an American business magnate and investor who served as the chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Ballmer was hired by Bill Gates at Microsoft in 1980, and subsequently left the MBA program at Stanford University.

He eventually became president in 1998, and replaced Gates as CEO on January 13, 2000. On February 4, 2014, Ballmer retired as CEO and was replaced by Satya Nadella; Ballmer remained on Microsoft’s Board of Directors until August 19, 2014, when he left to prepare for teaching a new class.

His tenure and legacy as Microsoft CEO has received mixed reception, with the company tripling sales and doubling profits, but losing its market dominance and missing out on 21st-century technology trends such as the ascendance of smartphones in the form of iPhone and Android.

Ballmer is credited for continuing to grow Microsoft’s enterprise strategy, steadily growing the company’s bottom line, overseeing the launch of the original Xbox and investing in the cloud. Ballmer retired from Microsoft in 2013.

Gates transitioned to a new role as technology advisor and Microsoft board member, serving as chairman until 2014. In recent years he has devoted more time to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, created in 1997 to address the biggest health and education issues of our time.

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16. Carlos Slim Helu net worth — $123 bn

• Age: 86
• Residence: Mexico City, Mexico
• Source of Wealth: América Móvil
• América Móvil Ownership Stake: 57%
• Other Assets: 17% of The New York Times, 79% stake of Grupo Carso

Carlos Slim Helú is a Mexican business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. From 2010 to 2013, Slim was ranked as the richest person in the world by the Forbes business magazine. He derived his fortune from his extensive holdings in a considerable number of Mexican companies through his conglomerate, Grupo Carso.

Slim’s corporate conglomerate spans numerous industries across the Mexican economy, of which includes education, health care, industrial manufacturing, transportation, real estate, mass media, energy, hospitality, entertainment, high-technology, retail, sports and financial services.

He accounts for 40% of the listings on the Mexican Stock Exchange, while his net worth is equivalent to about 6% of Mexico’s gross domestic product. As of 2016, he is the largest single shareholder of The New York Times Company.

Carlos Slim has been publicly skeptical of The Giving Pledge by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett giving away at least half of their fortunes. But he devoted $4 bn, or roughly 5%, to his Carlos Slim foundation as of 2011.

Though Slim has not gone as far as Gates and Buffett in pledging more than half of his fortune, Slim has expressed firm support for philanthropy and has advised budding entrepreneurs that businessmen must do more than give‍ – they “should participate in solving problems”.

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17. Changpeng Zhao net worth — $110 bn

• Age: 49
• Residence: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
• Source of Wealth: Binance Cryptocurrency exchange

Changpeng Zhao, often referred to as “CZ,” is a Chinese-Canadian entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.

Born in Jiangsu, China, Zhao moved to Canada with his family during his teenage years. He studied computer science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Before founding Binance in 2017, Zhao worked in various roles in the finance and technology sectors. He developed trading software for the Tokyo Stock Exchange and worked at Bloomberg Tradebook. Later, he joined Blockchain:info as the head of development and served briefly as the chief technology officer at OKCoin, another cryptocurrency exchange.

Under Zhao’s leadership, Binance quickly grew to become a major player in the cryptocurrency industry, offering a wide range of services including trading, asset management, and blockchain technology development. Zhao is known for his active presence on social media and his commitment to the growth and adoption of cryptocurrencies worldwide.

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18. Michael Bloomberg net worth — $109 bn

• Age: 84
• Residence: New York, New York
• Source of Wealth: Bloomberg LP
• Bloomberg LP Ownership Stake: 88% ($10 bn)

Michael Rubens Bloomberg is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

He has served as chair of the Defense Innovation Board, an independent advisory board that provides recommendations on artificial intelligence and generative AI tools, software, data and digital modernization to the United States Department of Defense, since June 2022.

Bloomberg grew up in Medford, Massachusetts, and graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School.

Michael Bloomberg began his career at the securities brokerage Salomon Brothers before forming his own company in 1981. That company, Bloomberg L.P., is a financial information, software and media firm that is known for its Bloomberg Terminal. Bloomberg spent the next twenty years as its chairman and CEO.

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19. Bill Gates net worth — $103 bn

• Age: 70
• Residence: Medina, Washington
• Source of Wealth: Microsoft
• Microsoft Ownership Stake: 1%
• Other Assets: investments in Canadian National Railway, AutoNation, approximately 242,000 acres of farmland in the U.S.

William Henry Gates III is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014.

He was a major entrepreneur of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Gates founded Microsoft in 1975 with Paul Allen and has since become the largest PC software company worldwide.

Gates has pursued many business and philanthropic endeavors. He is the founder and chairman of several companies, including BEN, Cascade Investment, bgC3, and TerraPower.

Bill Gates led the company as chairman and CEO until stepping down as CEO in January 2000, succeeded by Steve Ballmer, but he remained chairman of the board of directors and became chief software architect.

In June 2008, Gates transitioned to a part-time role at Microsoft and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the private charitable foundation he and his then-wife Melinda established in 2000.

In March 2020, Gates left his board positions at Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus on his philanthropic efforts on climate change, global health and development, and education of the X PRIZE, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2004.

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20. Mukesh Ambani net worth — $98 bn

• Age: 69
• Residence: Mumbai, India
• Source of Wealth: Reliance Industries Limited
• Reliance Industries Limited Ownership Stake: Ambani family holds around 49% of shares

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian billionaire businessman. He is the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries (RIL), a Fortune Global 500 company and India’s most valuable company by market value.

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani was born on 19 April 1957 in the British Crown colony of Aden (present-day Yemen) into a Gujarati Hindu family to Dhirubhai Ambani and Kokilaben Ambani

He has a younger brother Anil Ambani and two sisters, Nina Bhadrashyam Kothari and Dipti Dattaraj Salgaonkar.

The family’s financial status slightly improved when they moved to India but Ambani still lived in a communal society, used public transportation, and never received an allowance.

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21. Francoise Bettencourt Meyers net worth — $93 bn

• Age: 72
• Residence: Paris, France
• Source of Wealth: L’Oréal
• L’Oréal Ownership Stake: 33%

Françoise Bettencourt Meyers is a French businesswoman, philanthropist, writer, pianist and billionaire heiress, the richest woman in the world. She is the only child, heiress of Liliane Bettencourt and granddaughter of L’Oréal founder Eugène Schueller.

Her mother died in September 2017, after which her fortune tripled with her investments through her family holding company, Tethys Invest, and the high valuation of L’Oréal shares on the stock exchange.

In 2008, she sued François-Marie Banier for taking money from her mother, and she started proceedings to have her mother declared mentally incompetent. In December 2010, Bettencourt Meyers announced that she had settled out of court with both her mother and Banier.

Her mother died in September 2017 when her net worth was about $39.5 bn, which makes Bettencourt Meyers among the top 20 richest people in the world.

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22. Thomas Peterffy net worth — $93 bn

• Age: 83
• Residence: Hungaria / United States
• Source of Wealth: Founder and chairman of Interactive Brokers

Thomas Peterffy (born September 30, 1944) is a Hungarian-born American billionaire businessman. He is the founder, chairman, and the largest shareholder of Interactive Brokers.

Peterffy worked as an architectural draftsman after emigrating to the United States, and later became a computer programmer. In 1977, he purchased a seat on the American Stock Exchange and played a role in developing the first electronic trading platform for securities.

In 2021, Interactive Brokers moved its European headquarters in London and outsourced its operations to two new continental centers. Thereafter, their Western European clients were served by a subsidiary in Ireland, while their Central European operations were based in Budapest.

According to Peterffy, he chose Budapest because he was convinced that the Hungarian language and the “unique Hungarian logic” would result in above-average profitability; he also wanted to pay off the debt he owed to his native Hungary.

The Budapest-based subsidiary, Interactive Brokers Central Europe Zrt., was established in Hungary and became a member of the Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE) upon its incorporation.

Peterffy, alongside Mark Penn, Victor Ganzi, Josh Harris, and James Tisch, contributed to a $50 mn investment fund in The Messenger, a news website that launched in May 2023.

In 1999, Peterffy was influential in persuading the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that U.S. options markets could be linked electronically, which would ensure that investors receive the best possible options prices.

He has also testified before the United States Senate Banking Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment about adding banking regulation.

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23. Giancarlo Devasini net worth — $89 bn

• Age: 62
• Residence: Italy
• Source of Wealth: Tether, Bitfinex, crypto

Giancarlo Devasini (born 1964) is an Italian businessman and former physician. He is the chief financial officer of Bitfinex and co-owner of Tether.

Devasini began working as a cosmetic surgeon, performing plastic surgery. However, he retired from medicine after two years and started working in the IT industry, where he founded several companies specializing in the distribution of computer components.

Devasini later became involved in the cryptocurrency sector and participated in the founding of the Bitfinex trading platform in 2012. When Bitfinex ran into financial difficulties in 2018, Devasini used Tether’s reserves to keep Bitfinex afloat. Due to this conflict of interest, he paid a fine of $18.5 mn in New York in 2021 to settle a lawsuit.

In 2026, Tether was described as a highly profitable company that paid $10.9 bn in dividends in 2025, with its USDT stablecoin valued at approximately $184 bn and dominating the market for dollar-pegged digital assets.

Between 2017 and 2023, he lived in the city of Lugano in Ticino, where he ran his billion-dollar business from an office above a sports bar and established contacts with local politicians.

Tether has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the city of Lugano to promote cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. on the board of directors of Koch Industries. She tends not to seek public attention.

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24. Julia Koch net worth — $81 bn

• Age: 64
• Residence: New York, New York
• Source of Wealth: Koch Industries
• Koch Industries Ownership Stake: 42%

Julia Margaret Flesher Koch is an American socialite and philanthropist who is one of the richest women in the world. She inherited her fortune from her husband, David Koch, who died in 2019.

David Koch died in August 2019, and Julia Koch and their three children (David Jr., Mary Julia, and John Mark) inherited 42% of Koch Industries.

As a result, she was listed by Bloomberg as the richest woman in the world and was included on Forbes’ list of the richest women in the world in 2023.

In 2022, Koch put the apartment at 740 Park Avenue on the market; a spokesperson said that she wanted to sell it because she was spending more time at houses in Southampton and Palm Beach. Koch is on the board of directors of Koch Industries. She tends not to seek public attention.

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25. Gautam Adani net worth — $78 bn

• Age: 62
• Residence: India
• Source of Wealth: chairman of the $32 bn (revenue) Adani Group

Gautam Shantilal Adani is an Indian billionaire industrialist who is the founder and chairman of Adani Group, a multinational conglomerate involved in port development and operations in India with interests in ports, airports, power generation and transmission, and green energy, among others.

Adani is India’s biggest airport operator and also controls Mundra Port, India’s largest, in his home state of Gujarat.

The Adani Group, which began in 1988 as a commodities trading firm, expanded through acquisitions and with the support of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. This has led to allegations of cronyism, as his firms have won many energy and infrastructure contracts in India and abroad after Modi became the Prime Minister of India.

In January 2023, U.S. firm Hindenburg Research accused Adani and his companies of financial fraud and stock market manipulation. The Adani Group has denied any wrongdoing.

Adani became India’s second-largest cement producer in 2022, after acquiring Swiss firm Holcim’s Indian assets for $10.5 bn.

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Real-Time Billionaires Methodology

Real-Time Billionaires rankings tracks the daily ups and downs of the world’s richest people. The wealth-tracking platform provides ongoing updates on the net worth and ranking of each individual confirmed by Forbes to be a billionaire.

Individuals whose fortunes are significantly tied to private companies will have their net worths updated once a day.

In cases where an individual owns a stake in a private company that accounts for 20% or more of his or her net worth, the value of the company will be adjusted according to an industry- or region-specific market index provided by our partners at FactSet Research Systems when available.

A rotating cast of the five biggest winners and losers throughout the day is featured at the top of the page, followed by the complete list of billionaires ranked in order of net worth.

How many billionaires in the world?

The world’s billionaires – 3.030 individuals – represent almost $16 trln in wealth. The global billionaire population continued to grow in 2026, increasing by 5%.

• Number of women-billionaires – 390
• Number of men-billionaires – 2640

Number and combined net worth of billionaires by 2000-2026

2025	3,030	$16.1T
2024	2,781	$14.2T
2023	2,640	$12.2T
2022	2,668	$12.7T
2021	2,755	$13.1T
2020	2,095	$8.0T
2019	2,153	$8.7T
2018	2,208	$9.1T
2017	2,043	$7.7T
2016	1,810	$6.5T
2015	1,826	$7.1T
2014	1,645	$6.4T
2013	1,426	$5.4T
2012	1,226	$4.6T
2011	1,210	$4.5T
2010	1,011	$3.6T
2009	793	$2.4T
2008	1,125	$4.4T
2007	946	$3.5T
2006	793	$2.6T
2005	691	$2.2T
2004	587	$1.9T
2003	476	$1.4T
2002	497	$1.5T
2001	538	$1.8T
2000	470	$0.9T

Top 10 Richest Men in the World

The top 10 richest people in the world as of May, 2026

№	NAME	WORTH	SOURCE
1	Elon Musk	$790B	Tesla, SpaceX
2	Larry Page	$314B	Google
3	Sergey Brin	$290B	Google
4	Jeff Bezos	$275B	Amazon
5	Larry Ellison	$217B	Oracle
6	Mark Zuckerberg	$209B	Facebook
7	Michael Dell	$178B	Dell Tech
8	Jensen Huang	$172B	Nvidia
9	Rob Walton	$149B	Walmart
10	Jim Walton	$147B	Walmart

Youngest billionaire in 2026

This year, the 25 youngest people on Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list are all 35 or younger, with a combined net worth of $110 bn. Some built their fortunes through companies like Snap (Evan Spiegel, 35), Gymshark (Ben Francis, 33), and Oculus VR (Palmer Luckey, 33).

Brazil’s Livia Voigt, the world’s youngest billionaire at 20, holds a $1.1 bn stake in WEG, a company her late grandfather cofounded. She and her sister, Dora Voigt de Assis (28) are two of the seven new additions among the youngest billionaires, with 18 being heirs.

The wealthiest heirs are Ireland’s Mistry brothers, ages 27 and 29, each worth $5 bn due to their minority stakes in Tata Sons, a conglomerate covering IT, communications, engineering, and energy. Their father, Cyrus Mistry, passed away, less than three months after the death of their grandfather, Pallonji Mistry.

Several other young billionaires have joined the list in recent years following a parent’s death. Italy’s Clemente Del Vecchio, 21, inherited a significant stake in EssilorLuxottica, maker of Ray-Ban, after his father Leonardo Del Vecchio. His brothers, Leonardo Maria, 30, and Luca, 24, along with three older siblings, also received inheritances. Sophie Luise Fielmann, 31, heiress to the Fielmann AG eyeglass fortune.

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Written & Edited Nataly Kramer – Lead Insurance Editor at Beinsure Media

Fact-checked by Oleg Parashchak – Editor-in-Chief at Beinsure Media and Insurance TOP Ratings (25+ years of professional experience in Rankings, Insurance & Media) [as May 8, 2026]