December 31st 2024.
Elon Musk, the innovative mind behind companies like SpaceX, has recently made headlines for his staggering net worth. In fact, he is currently £188 billion richer than the second richest person in the world. But he's not the only billionaire making waves in the tech industry. People like Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, and Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, have also amassed great wealth.
According to recent reports, the combined net worth of the 500 richest people in the world has reached a record-breaking £8 trillion, or $10 trillion. However, while these individuals continue to accumulate wealth, there are still millions of people struggling to make ends meet. The World Bank estimates that nearly 700 million people live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than £1.71 per day.
Even in upper-middle income countries like Brazil, Algeria, Ukraine, and China, the poverty line is set at £5.46, and almost half of the population (3.5 billion people) falls below this threshold. While Musk, Zuckerberg, and Huang may dominate the top of the wealth charts, they are not the only tech giants in the mix. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are also among the top wealthiest individuals.
In fact, these eight individuals have collectively gained an astonishing £477 billion in wealth just this year. Bezos, who is currently the second richest person in the world, is still trailing behind Musk by a staggering £188 billion. This accounts for 43% of the total £1.2 trillion increase seen by the 500 richest people tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Musk, who now holds the title of the world's richest man, has seen his own net worth nearly double to £352 billion in 2024. This significant increase was aided by the re-election of his ally, former US President Donald Trump, who Musk publicly supported through both financial contributions and his influential social media platform, X. Despite the controversy surrounding his actions, this support has resulted in a boost in the stock prices of Musk's companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI. As a result, he has pulled even further ahead of Bezos, with a record gap of £188 billion between them.
[This article has been trending online recently and has been generated with AI. Your feed is customized.]
[Generative AI is experimental.]
