Top 10 Richest People in the World 2024: Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault & family, Jeff Bezos & Others

Money does not grow on trees and it takes years of hard work and patience to become rich. There are some founders, investors and businessmen in the world who have gone out of their league to make fortune worth billions. Their years of hard work have paid off and they are considered among the richest people of the world. These billionaires play an important role in shaping the economy of the world and their philanthropy is helping millions of people worldwide.  According to Forbes, there are 2,640 billionaires in the world in 2024.

In this article, we have discussed about the top 10 richest people in the world 2024 and how they have been able to acquire this much wealth. Most of these billionaires have made their fortunes in technology, while others are into e-commerce or business.

Top 10 Richest People in the World 2024

The table provides the list of the top 10 richest people in the world along with their net worth in 2024 and their nationality.

Forbes Richest People 2024

There are over 2500 individuals in the world holding the title of billionaire and are undoubtedly among the wealthiest people on the planet. But among these richest, there are certain who are collectively worth over a trillion. Let us learn a little bit about these people who are richest in the world in 2024.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk is the founder, CEO and Chief Engineer at SpaceX; an American spacecraft manufacturing and space launch providing company which he founded in 2002. With a net worth of approximately $251.3 Billion, Musk is the richest person in the world in 2024.

• Other than SpaceX, Musk is also the co-founder, angel investor, product architect and CEO of Tesla Inc.
• Elon is the founder of The Boring Company and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI.
• Driven by his ownership of around 20% of Tesla stock, Musk’s net worth skyrocketed in 2020 from $27 billion at the beginning to $150 billion by the year’s end.
• Musk Foundation is a charitable organization that aims to provide solar-power energy systems in disaster areas. Elon Musk is both the founder and president of this non-profit organization.

Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault is a French business tycoon and investor who confounded the world’s largest luxury goods company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. He is also the chairman and chief executive of LVHM and owes his immense wealth to the company itself. Bernard has a passion for art and holds an immense collection of antiques and other work of art. Arnault is the recipient of many awards like The Museum of Modern Art’s David Rockefeller Award, Honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur and others.

• Arnault got in the market when he bought Christian Dior in 1985 using the small fortune his father made in construction business.
• Currently, Bernard manages LVMH that comprises of 70 fashion and cosmetics brands, including Louis Vuitton and Sephora.
• He made what probably is the biggest luxury brand acquisition ever when his company LVMH acquired American jeweler Tiffany & Co for $15.8 billion.
• Other than luxury goods and jewelry, LVMH also owns the luxury hospitality group Belmond that has 46 hotels, trains and river cruises within it.

Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos is known as the founder, executive chairman, president (former) and CEO of Amazon, a technology company that offers e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming and artificial intelligence services.  Bezos was the wealthiest person from 2017 to 2021 and is still one of the wealthiest person in the world. Other than being a successful entrepreneur, Jeff is also a media proprietor, investor, computer engineer and commercial astronaut.

• Jeff Bezos has previously worked on Wall Street in a variety of related fields from 1986 to early 1994.
• He founded the company Amazon while on a road trip from New York City to Seattle in late 1994.
• Amazon began as an online bookstore and gradually expanded to other e-commerce products and services.
• Bezos is the first centibillionaire on the Forbes wealth index and was named the richest man in modern history.
• Currently, he owns the newspaper publishing company The Washington Post and an aerospace rocket developing company Blue Origin.

Larry Ellison

Lawrence “Larry” Ellison is the co-founder, executive chairman (CTO) and former CEO) of the computer technology company Oracle Corporation. As of 2024, Ellison is among the richest persons in the world, with a net worth of approximately $135.3 Billion. He served as the CEO of Oracle Corporation for 37 years from 1977 to 2014 when he gave up the role.

• Lawrence holds 98% ownership stake in Lanai, the sixth-largest island in the Hawaiian Archipelago.
• Ellison purchased 3 million shares in Tesla and became a member of board in December 2018.
• He is the recipient of the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1997 and was inducted into the Bay Area Business Hall of Fame in 2013.
• The Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC has honored Ellison with the first ‘Rebels With A Cause Award’ for his substantial support over the years.

Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is an American investor and philanthropist and the current chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Owing to his exceptional investing skills, he has earned a net worth of $118.6 Billion as of 2024 and is considered one of the most successful investors in the world. He is the world’s fifth-wealthiest person according to the list of Forbes Billionaire.

• Since 1970, Buffett is the chairman and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway.
• Known as the “Oracle of Omaha”, Buffett bought stock at age 11 and first filed taxes at age 13.
• He has promised to donate 99% of his wealth and has donated over $48 billion to the Gates Foundation and his other foundations founded by his kids.
• Along with Bill Gates, he found the Giving Pledge foundation that calls billionaires to commit to donating at least half of their wealth to charitable causes.

Larry Page

Larry Page is an American computer scientist. He completely changed the way we use the Internet by co-founding Google in the 90s.

Bill Gates

William Henry Gates III, or Bill Gates as you must know him, has been in the Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people since 1987. He co-founded the technology corporation Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. Gates held the Forbes title of the richest person in the world every from 1995 to 2017, except 2010 to 2013, and still ranks fourth.

• Gates was the chairman, CEO, president and chief software architect and the largest individual shareholder of Microsoft until May 2014.
• Gates stepped down from the Microsoft board in 2020 and owns around 1% of the company’s shares.
• Gates has converted his wealth from Microsoft into varied holdings including investments zero-carbon energy.
• He also has invested in multiple companies like Canadian National Railway and AutoNation.
• Gates is a major philanthropist and has donated nearly $57 billion to the Gates Foundation, most of which were gifts of Microsoft stock.

Sergey Brin

Alongside Larry Page, Sergey Brin co-founded Google. He played a pivotal role in creating algorithms for the search engine. Today, he is one of the most influential people in the world.

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg is the creator & current CEO of Facebook. His vision and leadership have transformed Facebook to be the largest social network site on the planet.

Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer is a noted businessman from America who also served as Microsoft CEO from 2000 to 2014. He was replaced by Satya Nadella as Microsoft CEO on February 4, 2014.

Disclaimer: The list of top 10 richest person in the world 2024 is made on the basis of data collected from reliable sources. The people mentioned in the list are currently the richest in the world but since the market is highly unpredictable, there are chances that the list keeps changing.