The billionaires club has never been bigger or richer. Here’s who’s up, who’s down, who’s off the list and why it matters more than ever.
The world’s billionaires have always been rich and powerful—but never more than now. That’s particularly true in the United States, where Donald Trump was sworn in (again) as America’s billionaire-in-chief in January. This time around, he’s giving the billionaire class more control over the government than ever before. His right-hand man is the planet’s richest person. His administration includes at least ten billionaires and billionaire spouses. And scores of billionaire execs—from Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg to French luxury goods kingpin Bernard Arnault have lined up behind Trump.
The billionaire bonanza extends beyond the U.S., however. A record 3,028 people around the globe make Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires list this year, 247 more than last year. It’s the first time the billionaire population has crossed the 3,000 mark. They’re worth a record $16.1 trillion in all, $2 trillion more than a year ago and more than the GDP of every country in the world besides the U.S. and China. The average fortune now stands at $5.3 billion, up $200 million from 2024.
There are now three people worth more than $200 billion for the first time ever, part of the record 15 members of the $100 Billion Club, the elite group at the very top of the list whose net worths span a dozen digits. That’s up from 14 a year ago and none in 2017. These 15 centibillionaires are worth $2.4 trillion—more than the bottom 1,500 billionaires combined.
The richest of all is Elon Musk, worth an estimated $342 billion. Despite spending a lot more of his (already divided) time heading DOGE, Trump’s cost-cutting operation, Musk has added $147 billion to his fortune over the past year, thanks to a blockbuster year for his rocket company SpaceX and his AI firm xAI (which he merged with his social media giant X last week). Even Tesla, despite recent protests and a stock market selloff, is trading higher than a year ago. That’s allowed Musk to reclaim the title of world’s richest person from Arnault, and has given him a $126 billion lead over the next richest person: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg (estimated net worth: $216 billion), who ranks No. 2 for the first time. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ($215 billion) ranks No. 3 and Oracle’s Larry Ellison ($192 billion) ranks fourth. Arnault ($178 billion), meanwhile, slides down to fifth, his lowest rank since 2017, amid a slump in shares of his luxury conglomerate LVMH. Forbes used stock prices and exchange rates from March 7, 2025 for this year’s ranking.
The United States, with a record 902 billionaire citizens, continues to boast more billionaires than anywhere else on the planet. China, with 516 (including Hong Kong), remains second and India, with 205, still ranks third. More than 50% of all listees are citizens of one of these three countries, but altogether 76 nations and two semi-autonomous territories have at least one billionaire, including Albania for the first time ever. Forbes also added 15 from Saudi Arabia this year, after removing the Kingdom’s billionaires in 2018 following a government crackdown.
In all, 288 fresh faces join the annual Billionaires ranking this year. That includes celebrities such as rockstar Bruce Springsteen ($1.2 billion), movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger ($1.1 billion) and comedian Jerry Seinfeld ($1.1 billion). Also new: controversial crypto kingpin Justin Sun ($8.5 billion), several artificial intelligence tycoons from such companies as Anthropic, CoreWeave and DeepSeek, and the moguls behind several notable food chains: Cava, Chipotle, Jersey Mike’s and Zaxby’s.