World's billionaires: Musk breaks $300 billion barrier, Trump becomes twice as rich

According to a report published by Forbes magazine on March 7, the number and wealth of billionaires have never been greater. This is especially noticeable in the United States: Donald Trump has taken office for the second time as a "billionaire president". This time, he is giving the billionaire class more influence over the government than ever before. His closest ally is the richest man in the world. There are at least ten billionaires and their spouses in the Trump administration.

Today's article will tell you in detail based on the Forbes report.

Billionaires in the world increased

This year, for the first time in history, the number of billionaires exceeded 3,000, with 3,028 people included in the annual Forbes list — 247 more than last year. Their total wealth is $16.1 trillion — $2 trillion more than last year, and more than the gross domestic product of all countries except the United States and China.

So far, three billionaires have more than $200 billion; only Elon Musk has a fortune of more than $300 billion. Thus, the fortune of billionaires with more than $100 billion is written in twelve-digit numbers.

According to the magazine, there were no such billionaires before, but by 2025, the number of “centibillionaires” (Latin “centibillionaire” – a person with $100 billion) will reach 15.

The richest person is Elon Musk

His fortune is currently about $342 billion. Despite spending most of his time running Trump's DOGE campaign, Musk has managed to add $147 billion to his fortune over the past year. This achievement was largely due to his rocket company SpaceX and the artificial intelligence firm xAI, which he recently merged with social media giant X.

Even Tesla, which has recently been under pressure from protests and stock sell-offs, is trading higher than it was last year. As a result, Musk has once again taken the title of the richest person in the world from Bernard Arnault and is $126 billion ahead of the second richest person in the world, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg is also making big strides, moving into second place for the first time with a fortune of $216 billion. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is in third place with $215 billion. Arnold is now in fifth place with $178 billion.

Which countries have the most billionaires?

The United States remains the country with the most billionaires in the world, with a record 902. China is in second place with 516 billionaires (including Hong Kong), and India is in third place with 205 billionaires. Half of all billionaires on the list are citizens of these three countries, and a total of 76 countries and 2 semi-autonomous territories have at least one billionaire.

Albania also joined the list for the first time this year. Also, 15 Saudi Arabian billionaires, who were removed from the list in 2018 due to government pressure, returned to the list this year.

New and old rich

In total, 288 new names were added to this year's list of billionaires. Some of them are rock star Bruce Springsteen, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. It is worth noting that the list also includes founders and CEOs of many artificial intelligence companies. In particular, the founders of Anthropic, CoreWeave, and DeepSeek are now among the billionaires. In addition, the entrepreneurs behind popular food chains such as Cava, Chipotle, Jersey Mike’s, and Zaxby’s have also entered the ranking.

The richest new member on this year’s list is Marilyn Simons, the widow of legendary cryptanalyst Jim Simons, who died in May 2024, leaving her with a fortune of $31 billion. In total, 32 billionaires died last year.

Compared to previous years, the year was not so lucky for some billionaires. 107 people who were on the 2024 ranking are no longer rich enough and have left the list.

Heiresses and female billionaires

There are only 406 women among the world's billionaires, which is only 13.4% of the total list. Last year, this figure was 13.3%. It is worth noting that almost 3/4 of these women inherited their wealth. Among them is the richest woman in the world — Walmart heiress Alice Walton, who owns $101 billion. She took first place among women this year, surpassing French L'Oreal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, who has a fortune of $81.6 billion.

Overall, 67 percent of the billionaires on the list are self-made, meaning they founded or co-founded a company, or amassed their wealth themselves rather than inheriting it. That’s up slightly from 66 percent in 2024.

How old are the billionaires?

The youngest self-made billionaire is Alexander Wang, 28, the co-founder and CEO of Scale AI, with a net worth of $2 billion.

There are 21 billionaires under the age of 30, and the youngest is Johannes von Baumbach, a 19-year-old heir to a German pharmaceutical empire who made the list this year and is currently the world’s youngest billionaire.

Billionaires are not only young, and the list includes four billionaires over 100 years old, the oldest of whom is 103-year-old US insurance magnate George Joseph. In general, the average age of billionaires is 66.

President Trump's Wealth

For Donald Trump, this year has been almost as successful as anyone else, and not only because of his return to the presidency. Before starting his new term in the White House, he made a huge profit by investing in the crypto sector. In addition, his company Trump Media & Technology Group went public after the 2024 Forbes rating was completed.

As a result, Trump's fortune increased from $2.3 billion to $5.1 billion. This is almost a double profit.