Forbes has announced its 35th annual list of the world’s richest people for 2021.
The publication said the list now encompasses 2,755 people who are billionaires, 660 more than the prior year, with a record-high number of new names to make the cut — 493, many of whom come from China and Hong Kong.
There were 250 who had dropped off but have made a comeback.
A vast majority of people who had been on the 2020 list are richer than they were the previous year.
Former Amazon CEO and current executive chairman Jeff Bezos is once again the richest man in the world with a net worth of $177 billion. In 2020 he was worth $113 billion when he was at the top of that year’s rankings, Forbes reported.
Here are the rest of the top 10 richest people in the world and their net worth and the companies they lead, or in some cases general ways they made their fortunes.
- Jeff Bezos, $177 billion, Amazon
- Elon Musk, $151 billion, Tesla
- Bernard Arnault and family, $150 billion, LVMH
- Bill Gates, $124 billion, Microsoft
- Mark Zuckerberg, $97 billion, Facebook
- Warren Buffett, $96 billion, Berkshire Hathaway
- Larry Ellison, $93 billion, software
- Larry Page, $91.5 billion, Google
- Sergey Brin, $89 billion, Google
- Mukesh Ambani, $84.5 billion, diversified
[2025 Update]
Forbes released its 2025 World’s Billionaires List on April 1, 2025, featuring a record 3,028 billionaires with a combined net worth of $16.1 trillion, an increase of 247 individuals and nearly $2 trillion from the previous year. The United States leads with 902 billionaires, followed by China (516) and India (205), and the list includes 288 new billionaires, with notable additions such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Seinfeld, and Bruce Springsteen.
- Elon Musk is ranked first globally with a net worth of $342 billion as of March 7, 2025, primarily from Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI.
- Mark Zuckerberg ranks second with $216 billion, derived from Facebook (Meta) and related ventures.
- Jeff Bezos is third with $215 billion, from Amazon.
- Larry Ellison is fourth with $192 billion, from Oracle.
- Bernard Arnault & family rank fifth with $178 billion, from LVMH.
- Warren Buffett is sixth with $154 billion, from Berkshire Hathaway.
- Larry Page and Sergey Brin are seventh and eighth, with $144 billion and $138 billion respectively, from Google (Alphabet).
- The list highlights 196 self-made billionaires among the new entrants, with 70% of the 288 newcomers being self-made.
- The youngest new billionaire is 19-year-old Johannes von Baumbach of Germany, inheriting a stake in Boehringer Ingelheim.
- The richest self-made newcomer is Sulaiman Al Habib of Saudi Arabia, worth $10.9 billion.
- Technology is the top sector for new billionaires, with 46 individuals, including Dario Amodei and the six cofounders of Anthropic, who raised $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion valuation.
- Finance and healthcare each contributed 41 and 40 new billionaires, respectively.
- As of January 3, 2026, the most recent update to the Forbes list shows a record 2,781 billionaires with a total net wealth of $14.2 trillion, reflecting a $2 trillion increase from 2023.
