PREMIUM
BILLIONAIRES
DAILY COVER
The Top 10 Richest People In
The World (March 2025)
Elon Musk
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/AP
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Plunging Tesla shares in February shaved tens of
billions off Elon Musk’s fortune. And Mark Zuckerberg
became the world’s second richest person.
Last update: March 1, 2025, 12 A.M. EDT
While the Trump administration spent much of February working to slash
federal employment, stocks sagged–and the world’s ten richest people collectively
got $140 billion poorer. Elon Musk was the biggest loser of the bunch. Though he
still holds onto his spot as the world’s wealthiest person, a sharp downturn in
Tesla shares shaved $62 billion off his fortune, as the electric vehicle maker shed
a remarkable one-quarter of its market valuation in February.
Back in December, Musk became the first billionaire to be worth more than $400
billion, as Tesla shares climbed and the value of Musk’s privately-held artificial
intelligence firm, xAI, surged thanks to new investors. But his tenure at that
upper echelon was relatively short-lived. On February 10, as Tesla shares
tumbled, his fortune dropped below $400 billion. And the stock kept falling. As
of March 1, he’s worth just shy of $360 billion, Forbes estimates.
The plunge in Tesla shares took place amid reports that purchases of Tesla
vehicles have declined dramatically in Europe and states like California. In the
U.S., some citizens unhappy with Musk’s abrupt moves to fire federal workers in
his role as a leader of DOGE-the Department of Government Efficiency–
have vandalized Tesla dealerships or staged protests in front of them.
Mark Zuckerberg had a better month, in net worth terms, becoming the world’s
second richest person–a first for him. Zuckerberg has weaker Amazon shares to
thank for his move into the No. 2 spot. A nearly 11% drop in Amazon’s stock price
in February erased more than $23 billion from Amazon Chairman Jeff Bezos’
fortune, dragging him down to the No. 3 rank and making way for Zuckerberg to
move ahead of him. Zuckerberg’s fortune also fell last month, but not as much as
Bezos’. The Meta Platforms CEO starts off March worth an estimated nearly $231
billion. Bezos is not far behind, worth nearly $227 billion.
Warren Buffett was the only one of the world’d top 10 richest whose fortune grew
last month. Shares of Berkshire Hathaway, the investing conglomerate he leads,
ticked up about 10%, adding nearly $15 billion to Buffett’s fortune, which now
clocks in at $161 billion.
Altogether the top ten richest are worth a notable $1.89 trillion, down from $2.03
trillion at the start of February.
Forbes has been keeping track of the world’s billionaires since 1987. In April
2024 we found 2,781 of them for our annual list.
Here are the 10 richest people on earth as of March 1, 2025 at 12 a.m. Eastern
time, according to Forbes. Stock prices fluctuate routinely, so these net worths
may change on a daily basis. Forbes tracks the daily changes on our Real Time
list of billionaires.
Key Facts
Elon Musk
is the richest person in the world, a title he’s held since May 2024.
Jeff Bezos
the founder and chairman of Amazon, fell to the world’s No. 3 richest from No.
2 in late February.
Bill Gates
dropped out of the top 10 richest in October 2024 after Forbes obtained new
information about a significant contraction in his fortune.
8/10
of the richest people in the world are Americans. The two non-U.S. citizens:
France’s Bernard Arnault and Spain’s Amancio Ortega.
All
of the top ten richest people as of March 1 are men. Each of them is worth $118
billion or more.
Who are the top 10 richest people in the
world?*
1. Elon Musk
2. Mark Zuckerberg
3. Jeff Bezos
4. Larry Ellison
5. Bernard Arnault
6. Warren Buffett
7. Larry Page
8. Sergey Brin
9. Amancio Ortega
10. Steve Ballmer
*As of March 1, 2025 at 12 a.m. ET
1. Elon Musk
Net worth: $359.5 billion
Source: Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, X
Age: 53
Residence: Austin, Texas
Citizenship: U.S.
Tesla shares fell more than 25% during February, erasing $62 billion from
Musk’s fortune, pushing it well below $400 billion.
Musk, named by President Trump as a leader of the advisory group Department
of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has with Trump’s support wreaked havoc in
various federal agencies in recent weeks, encouraging rapid job cuts and emailing
all federal workers asking for a reply with bullet points spelling out what each
worker had done the prior week; failure to reply would indicate a worker’s
resignation, Musk threatened. Some agency heads told their employees they
didn’t need to comply with Musk’s request.
Musk is CEO of electric car company Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX; chairman and
chief technology officer of social media company X, formerly known as Twitter;
and founder of artificial intelligence firm xAI. He owns 13% of Tesla stock and
has pledged some of his stock as collateral for loans. The electric car maker’s
shareholders voted in June in favor of Musk keeping nearly $50 billion of
performance based stock options in what a Delaware judge had earlier called “the
largest potential compensation opportunity ever observed in public markets,”
when she voided the award this January and affirmed the ruling in December. A
lengthy appeal of the Delaware ruling is likely ongoing. Until Musk receives those
options, Forbes will continue to discount the Tesla options from the pay package
by 50%.
Originally from South Africa, Musk moved to Canada before his 18th birthday,
worked a variety of jobs, enrolled at Queen’s University in Ontario and then
transferred to University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in
economics.
In 2000, he merged an online bank he cofounded, X.com, with a similar outfit
cofounded by Peter Thiel to form PayPal, which eBay bought in 2002 for $1.4
billion. He founded SpaceX in 2002 in El Segundo, near Los Angeles. In 2004 he
joined Tesla as an investor and chairman, a year after it was founded; he was
later granted the cofounder title. Musk, who became CEO of Tesla in 2008, took
the company public in 2010. In September 2021, Musk became the world’s
richest person. Musk was also the world’s richest person for most of 2022—until
December 2022. Musk became the world’s richest person again on June 8, 2023
and held onto the number one spot for the remainder of 2023. He fell to No. 2 on
January 31, 2024.
Musk became the world’s richest person yet again in late May 2024, after his
startup xAI raised $6 billion from private investors at a $24 billion valuation. xAI
raised an additional $5 billion from investors in November, valuing the startup at
$50 billion. He owns an estimated 54% of the company.
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2. Mark Zuckerberg
Net worth: $230.7 billion
Source: Meta (Facebook)
Age: 40
Residence: Palo Alto, California Citizenship: U.S.
Zuckerberg rose to become the world’s second richest person in late February—a
first for the social media mogul. He overtook Amazon founder and chairman Jeff
Bezos, whose stock fell nearly 11% during the month. Zuckerberg is now worth $4
billion more than Bezos, per Forbes’ estimates.
Zuckerberg cofounded Facebook—now called Meta Platforms—when he was a
student at Harvard University in 2004. It has grown to be the world’s largest
social network, with several billion users globally. The company also owns
Instagram and WhatsApp, both of which it acquired and greatly expanded.
Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, took the company public in 2012 and still owns
about 13% of it.
MICHAEL PRINCE FOR FORBES
3. Jeff Bezos
Net worth: $226.7 billion
Source: Amazon
Age: 60
Residence: Miami, Florida
Citizenship: U.S.
Jeff Bezos fell from No. 2 richest to No. 3 in late February, propelled downward
by a drop in the price of Amazon shares. His fortune fell by more than $23 billion
over the past month as a result of the decline, which was sparked in part by
Walmart warning of a slowdown in sales and profit growth this year.
Bezos created e-commerce giant Amazon in 1994 and ran it as CEO until July
2021 (he remains chairman); that same month he went to space on a rocket built
by private rocket company Blue Origin, which he founded and has funded with
billions of dollars. (Blue Origin recently announced an all-female crew going to
space in its next mission this spring—including pop star Katy Perry, CBS
Mornings co-host Gayle King and Bezos’ fiancé, Lauren Sanchez.)
Before founding Amazon.com in his garage in Seattle, Bezos worked in New York
at hedge fund D.E. Shaw. Amazon began as an online bookseller at a time when
few people bought goods online. The company also grew to dominate cloud
storage and moved into movie and series production to feed Amazon Prime
Video.
Bezos was the world’s richest person on Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires
from 2018 through 2021; he dropped to second richest on the 2022 billionaires
list and No. 3 on the 2024 list.
In 2019, Bezos and his wife MacKenzie divorced; as part of the settlement, she
got 4% of Amazon’s shares and he kept 12%. He has since sold and given away
more of his stake and owns just under 10% of the company. Since Amazon went
public in 1997, Forbes calculates that he has sold more than $38 billion worth of
his stock. Through his Bezos Expeditions he has invested in an array of
companies, including Airbnb and software firm Workday.
JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES
4. Larry Ellison
Net worth: $204.6 billion
Source: Oracle
Age: 80
Residence: Woodside, California
Citizenship: U.S.E
Ellison kept his No. 4 rank from the prior month despite an $8.8 billion dip in his
fortune. Oracle shares fell about 2% in the past month.
On January 21, the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, Ellison
was on hand when Trump announced the Stargate Project, a venture with
Ellison’s firm Oracle, Chat GPT creator OpenAI, Japan’s Masayoshi Son and his
firm Softbank and MGX of the UAE. The group says it will spend $500 billion
over four years to build AI infrastructure—mainly data centers—in the U.S.
Ellison cofounded software firm Oracle in 1977 and ran it as CEO until 2014; he
now serves as chairman and chief technology officer of the company.
In 2012, Ellison bought 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai for $300 million. He
also owns homes in California, Nevada and Florida. Ellison invested in Tesla and
served on the board of the electric vehicle company from 2018 through August
2022.
JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES
5. Bernard Arnault
Net worth: $186.4 billion
Source: LVMH/ luxury goods
Age: 75
Residence: Paris
Citizenship: France
Bernard Arnault, CEO and chairman of luxury goods group LVMH, got $2.8
billion poorer amid a slight decline in the group’s share price.
Arnault’s father made millions in the construction business; to get his start,
Arnault used $15 million of that fortune to buy Christian Dior. He has since built
the largest luxury goods company in the world with some 70 fashion and
cosmetics brands, including Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Moet & Chandon,
Sephora and jeweler Tiffany & Co.
All five of Arnault’s children work in parts of the LVMH empire. Earlier this year,
Arnault nominated two of his sons—Alexandre and Frédéric—to the board of
LVMH and in November Alexandre was named deputy CEO of LVMH’s wine and
spirits division. His daughter Delphine, who runs Dior, and son Antoine, already
sit on the board. In June he named son Frédéric as head of LVMH’s family
holding group. His youngest son, Jean, is director of watches at Louis Vuitton.
Arnault was the world’s richest person for most of the first half of 2023 and again
from February through late May 2024.
TIMOTHY ARCHIBALD FOR FORBES
6. Warren Buffett
Net worth: $161.1 billion
Source: Berkshire Hathaway
Age: 94
Residence: Omaha, Nebraska
Citizenship: U.S.
Buffett was the only on of the top 10 with a fortune that increased in the past
month, rising $14.9 billion during February. The A shares of investment
conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway closed at a record high $775,000 on Friday,
February 28.
Known as the "Oracle of Omaha," Buffett is one of the most successful investors
of all time. He runs Berkshire Hathaway, which owns dozens of companies,
including insurer Geico, battery maker Duracell and restaurant chain Dairy
Queen. The son of a U.S. congressman, he first bought stock at age 11 and first
filed taxes at age 13.
Buffett created the Giving Pledge with Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates in
2010, asking billionaires to commit to give away at least half their fortune to
charitable groups. Buffett has said he would donate 99% of his fortune. So far
he’s give more than $60 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation and foundations run by his children and one started by his late
first wife. That includes $5.3 billion in June 2024.
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7. Larry Page
Net worth: $141.5 billion
Source: Google
Age: 51
Residence: Palo Alto, California
Citizenship: U.S.
Page’s fortune fell by $26 billion in the past month, as Google-parent Alphabet’s
shares tumbled more than 13% during the month.
In late November the Department of Justice said Google should sell its Chrome
browser in order to reduce the company’s dominance online. In response, Google
said in a statement that such a move would hurt consumers and America’s
technological leadership. The decision may have been one reason that Alphabet
CEO Sundar Pichai attended Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
Page cofounded search engine Google with fellow Stanford PhD student Sergey
Brin in 1998 and served as CEO until 2001 and from 2011 to 2015. He now serves
as a board member of Google’s parent Alphabet and continues to be a controlling
shareholder.
Page was a founding investor in asteroid mining company Planetary Resources,
which was acquired by blockchain firm ConsenSys in 2018.
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8. Sergey Brin
Net worth: $135.4 billion
Source: Google
Age: 51
Residence: Los Altos, California
Citizenship: U.S.
Like his Google cofounder Larry Page, Brin’s fortune also declined in the past
month —down $24.4 billion—as Alphabet shares tumbled.
Brin cofounded search engine Google with fellow Stanford computer science PhD
candidate Larry Page. Like Page, he currently serves as a board member of
Google’s parent company Alphabet and is a controlling shareholder.
Brin came out of semi-retirement to submit changes to Google’s Gemini AI
chatbot last year and was listed as a “core contributor” when the model was
released in December.
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9. Amancio Ortega
Net worth: $121.9 billion
Source: Zara-parent Inditex
Age: 88
Residence: La Coruna, Spain
Citizenship: Spain
Amancio Ortega keeps his No. 9 rank for the second month in a row. His fortune
declined $1.4 billion in the past month.
Ortega, one of the pioneers of fast fashion, founded Inditex—parent of the Zara
chain of stores—in 1975 with his then-wife Rosalia Mera. (They later divorced and
she died in 2013.) He owns about 60% of Madrid-listed Inditex, which has eight
brands including Massimo Dutti and Pull & Bear, and 5,000 stores around the
world. In 2022, after working at Inditex for 15 years, his daughter Marta Ortega
Pérez became chairperson of the company.
Ortega has invested dividends from the clothing business into commercial real
estate in Europe and North America.
MARK LENNHAN/AP
10. Steve Ballmer
Net worth: $118.9 billion
Source: Microsoft, LA Clippers, investments
Age: 68
Residence: Hunts Point, Washington
Citizenship: U.S.
A drop in Microsoft shares led to a $4 billion decline in Ballmer’s fortune. In late
January, Microsoft issued weaker-than-expected guidance for the next quarter.
Ballmer, a classmate of Bill Gates’ at Harvard University, joined Microsoft as
employee number 30 in 1980 after dropping out of the MBA program at Stanford
University. He ran Microsoft as its CEO from 2000 to 2014.
When Ballmer retired from Microsoft, he purchased the Los Angeles Clippers
team for $2 billion—a record high for an NBA team at the time. Forbes now
values the team at $5.5 billion. The new home for the Clippers, the Intuit Dome
in Inglewood—not far from Los Angeles International Airport—opened in August
2024.
Who is the richest man in the world?
As of March 1, 2025, the richest person in the world is Tesla and SpaceX CEO
Elon Musk. He’s worth $359.5 billion. He moved into the number one spot in late
May 2024, overtaking Bernard Arnault of France.
Who is the richest woman in the world?
The richest woman in the world is Alice Walton, daughter of Walmart founder
Sam Walton. As of March 1, 2025, she is worth an estimated $107.5 billion and is
the world’s 15th richest person. Her fortune lies in her ownership stake in retailer
Walmart, which she inherited from her late father. Her brothers Rob, Jim and
John (d. 2005) also inherited stakes in Walmart from their father. John’s widow
Christy Walton and their son Lukas Walton inherited John’s shares and both
rank on Forbes’ billionaires list.
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ByForbes Wealth Team
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