World's Top 10 Richest People Gained More Wealth In 2024 Than Costco And Nike's Combined Valuation: How Elon Musk, Warren Buffett And Others Fared

Billionaire Elon Musk became the first person in the world to have a wealth of more than $400 billion, an accomplishment that came following the 2024 presidential election.

Musk wasn't the only billionaire to see their wealth grow dramatically in 2024. Here's a look at the top 10 richest people in the world and their wealth changes during 2024.

What Happened: The S&P 500 gained 23.3% in 2024, marking a second consecutive year of 20% or more gains for the leading stock market index.

The stock index has now gained at least 20% in four of the last six years and gained at least 15% in five of the last six years, with the 19.4% decline in 2022 the outlier.

The soaring stock prices helped boost the wealth of the ultra-wealthy, with the top 10 richest people in the world gaining a combined $518 billion in 2024.

Here are the top 10 richest people in the world to close out 2024 and a look at how much their wealth increased and their ranking to start 2024, as reported by Bloomberg.

1. Elon Musk, Tesla Inc TSLA CEO, $432 billion, +$203 billion (was 1^st)
2. Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Inc AMZN founder, $239 billion, +$61.8 billion (was 3^rd)
3. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Platforms META CEO, $207 billion, +$79.2 billion (was 6^th)
4. Larry Ellison, Oracle Corporation ORCL co-founder, $192 billion, +$69.2 billion (was 8^th)
5. Bernard Arnault, LVMH LVMHF CEO, $176 billion, -$31.2 billion (was 2^nd)
6. Larry Page, Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL co-founder, $168 billion, +$41.8 billion (was 7^th)
7. Bill Gates, Microsoft Corporation MSFT co-founder, $159 billion, +$18.0 billion (was 4^th)
8. Sergey Brin, Alphabet co-founder, $158 billion, +$38.3 billion (was 9^th)
9. Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO, $147 billion, +$15.7 billion (was 5^th)
10. Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Inc BRKBRK CEO, $142 billion, +$22.2 billion (was 10^th)

Together the top 10 billionaires ended 2024 worth $2.02 trillion, which would rank as the sixth-largest company in the world.

The billionaires saw their wealth grow by an average of $51.8 billion in 2024 for a total gain of $518.0 billion. Together, the 10 richest people gained more than the combined market capitalizations of Costco and Nike, which are valued at $407 billion and $111 billion respectively.

The $518 billion in wealth gained would rank 16^th among publicly traded companies and is higher than the valuations of many well-known companies including Mastercard, ExxonMobil, Oracle and UnitedHealth.

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Why It's Important: The 2024 top 10 list contained the same 10 people at the start and end of the year, with several positions changed. Arnault, who started the year second, fell to fifth place and was the only person in the top 10 to lose wealth during the year. Zuckerberg and Ellison had big moves gaining three positions and four positions respectively.

Musk was the biggest gainer with a massive $203 billion added to his wealth thanks to the soaring price of Tesla stock after the 2024 presidential election and a new valuation for SpaceX.

Ranking second for wealth added was Zuckerberg with $79.2 billion added as Meta Platforms stock gaining over 60% in 2024.

The 10 richest people weren't the only ones who gained in 2024 with 19 of the top 25 richest people all adding to their wealth.

Michael Dell, who ranked 11^th to end the year, added $45.2 billion to his wealth to a new total of $124 billion.

Jensen Huang ended the year ranked 12^th at $114 billion, adding $70.3 billion to his wealth. This was the third highest gain in 2024 and came as NVIDIA Corporation NVDA was the third highest gaining S&P 500 stock in 2024 with a gain of 171.2%.

Among the world's 30 wealthiest individuals, only seven experienced a decrease in their wealth in 2024. Similarly, within the top 50 richest people globally, 15 witnessed a decline in their wealth last year.

While the top 10 got richer, there was a larger number of decliners in the top 30 and top 50 for 2024 compared to 2023.

Other big decliners were Carlos Slim ranked 18^th who saw his wealth decline $25.9 billion and Francoise Bettencourt Meyers ranked 20^th who saw her wealth decline by $25.2 billion.

One name that will be interesting to watch in 2025 is Jeff Yass, who ranks 29^th at $45.9 billion. Yass owns 15% of TikTok parent ByteDance and is a Donald Trump supporter. A pending TikTok ban in the United States, which Trump now opposes, could impact Yass's wealth significantly in 2025.

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