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Top 10 Richest People In The World

Published

1 year ago

June 4, 2024

The combined net worth of the world’s top 10 richest individuals in June 2024 has reached nearly $1.59 trillion, an increase of about $50 billion from the previous month.

Forbes, which has tracked global billionaires since 1987, continues to monitor these dynamic changes through their real-time billionaire tracker.

French business mogul, Bernard Arnault, was the world’s wealthiest person from February until late May 2024.

However, in the latest June 1 release, Tesla and X, CEO, Elon Musk reclaimed the title of the world’s richest person, thanks to his new AI company, xAI, which raised $6 billion, boosting his fortune to over $210 billion.

Bernard Arnault, who held the top spot from February to May, saw his wealth drop to $201.6 billion due to a decline in LVMH shares.

Mark Zuckerberg gained $12.6 billion, reaching $163.8 billion.

Bill Gates remains the ninth richest at $129.4 billion.

Here is a list of the top 10 richest in the world in June 2024:

1. Elon Musk

Elon Musk

Net worth: $210.3 billion
Source: Tesla, SpaceX, X (Twitter)
Age: 52
Residence: Austin, Texas
Citizenship: U.S.
Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and social media company X (formerly Twitter), and founder of xAI. He owns 13 per cent of Tesla and 74 per cent of X, which he bought for $44 billion in October 2022.

Born in South Africa, Musk moved to Canada at 17, and attended Queen’s University and then the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2000, he co-founded PayPal, which was sold to eBay for $1.4 billion in 2002. Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 and joined Tesla in 2004, becoming CEO in 2008.

He became the world’s richest person in 2021, with a peak fortune of $320 billion.

Musk regained the top spot in June 2023, briefly lost it in January 2024, but reclaimed it in May 2024 after xAI raised $6 billion.

2. Arnault-Bernard

Arnault-Bernard

Net worth: $201.6 billion
Source: LVMH/ luxury goods
Age: 75
Residence: Paris
Citizenship: France
Bernard Arnault, CEO and chairman of LVMH fell to the second richest spot in late May 2024, overtaken by Elon Musk.

Arnault built LVMH into the largest luxury goods company, with brands like Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, and Tiffany & Co.

He used $15 million from his father’s construction fortune to buy Christian Dior. All five of his children work within LVMH, with Alexandre, Frédéric, Delphine, Antoine, and Jean holding significant positions.

Arnault was the world’s richest person for most of the first half of 2023 and again from February to late May 2024.

As of June 1, 2024, his fortune is $7.8 billion less than a month ago due to a dip in LVMH stock.

3. Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos

http://www.wealthx.com
Net worth: $194.7 billion
Source: Amazon
Age: 60
Residence: Miami, Florida
Citizenship: U.S.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 and served as CEO until July 2021; he remains chairman. In the same month, he went to space on a Blue Origin rocket, a company he founded and heavily funds. His fortune increased by $1.4 billion in May 2024 due to a rise in Amazon stock.

Before Amazon, Bezos worked at hedge fund D.E. Shaw in New York. Amazon started as an online bookseller and expanded into cloud storage and media production. Bezos was the world’s richest person from 2018 to 2021 but dropped to second in 2022.

In 2019, Bezos divorced MacKenzie Scott, who received 4 per cent of Amazon shares while he kept 12 per cent.

He now owns just under 10% of the company, having sold over $27 billion in stock since Amazon went public in 1997. Through Bezos Expeditions, he has invested in companies like Airbnb and Workday.

4. Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg

Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg
Net worth: $163.8 billion
Source: Meta (Facebook)
Age: 40
Residence: Palo Alto, California
Citizenship: U.S.
Mark Zuckerberg co-founded Facebook, now Meta Platforms, at Harvard in 2004.

Meta, the world’s largest social network, has over 3 billion monthly users and owns Instagram and WhatsApp.

Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, took the company public in 2012 and owns about 13 per cent of it. He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, pledged 99 per cent of their Meta stock to philanthropic efforts, aiming to develop tools to cure, manage, or prevent all diseases by the century’s end.

Zuckerberg reentered the top 10 richest in the summer of 2023 due to a rise in Meta’s stock. In May 2024, his fortune increased by $12.6 billion as Meta’s stock climbed 8.5 per cent.

5. Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison

Net worth: $146.2 billion
Source: Oracle
Age: 79
Residence: Woodside, California
Citizenship: U.S.
Larry Ellison co-founded Oracle in 1977 and served as CEO until 2014; he is now chairman and chief technology officer. Oracle has made significant acquisitions, including Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion in 2010.

In 2012, Ellison bought 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai for $300 million. He also owns homes in California and Nevada and invested in Tesla, serving on its board from 2018 to August 2022.

In February 2024, Ellison was overtaken by Mark Zuckerberg and fell to the fifth richest. In May, his net worth increased by $3.4 billion.

6. Larry Page

Larry Ellison

Net worth: $142.9 billion
Larry Page
Google co-founder Larry Page
Source: Google
Age: 51
Residence: Palo Alto, California
Citizenship: U.S.
Page co-founded Google with Sergey Brin in 1998, serving as CEO from 1998 to 2001 and from 2011 to 2015.

He currently sits on Alphabet’s board and remains a major shareholder.

Additionally, he was an early investor in Planetary Resources, later acquired by ConsenSys.

Page’s wealth surged due to increased Alphabet shares, rising $7.5 billion in May 2024 following a $9 billion jump in April.

7. Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett

Net worth: $137 billion
Source: Berkshire Hathaway
Age: 93
Residence: Omaha, Nebraska
Citizenship: U.S.
Warren Buffett, known as the “Oracle of Omaha,” heads Berkshire Hathaway, which owns companies like Geico, Duracell, and Dairy Queen.

He began investing at 11, co-founded the Giving Pledge in 2010, and has pledged to donate 99% of his wealth.

His donations, primarily in Berkshire Hathaway stock, total over $51.5 billion, making him the most generous billionaire globally.

In May 2024, his wealth rose by $6 billion, driven by Berkshire Hathaway’s share price increase.

8. Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin

Net worth: $136.9 billion
Source: Google
Age: 50
Residence: Los Altos, California
Citizenship: U.S.
Brin, alongside Larry Page, co-founded Google while pursuing their Stanford computer science PhDs.

He currently sits on Alphabet’s board and holds a significant share. Brin’s wealth surged by $7 billion in May 2024.

Despite semi-retirement, he contributed to Google’s Gemini AI chatbot and was a key contributor to its release.

Brin is the leading individual donor for Parkinson’s disease research, contributing $1.25 billion to various initiatives, including Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s, a collaborative effort led by his team.

9. Bill Gates

Bill Gates

Net worth: $129.4 billion
Source: Microsoft, investments
Age: 68
Residence: Medina, Washington
Citizenship: U.S.
Gates, fascinated by computer programming in his teens, co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975, pioneering software for personal computers. He served as CEO for 25 years and remained chairman until 2014.

Despite stepping off the board in 2020, he still advises Microsoft teams part-time. Gates has diverse investments in numerous companies, including Republic Services and Deere & Co., and owns significant farmland in the U.S.

Forbes first recognized Gates as a billionaire in 1987, and he held the title of the world’s richest person from 1995 to 2017, except for brief periods. He has donated over $59 billion to the Gates Foundation, losing the top spot to Jeff Bezos in 2018. Following his divorce from Melinda French Gates in 2021, she received an estimated $10 billion in assets.

In May 2024, Gates’ fortune increased by around $2.4 billion, maintaining his No. 9 rank, though it’s the lowest he’s ranked in decades as others surpass him.

10. Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer

Net worth: $123.2 billion
Source: Microsoft, Clippers, investments
Age: 68
Residence: Hunts Point, Washington
Citizenship: U.S.
Ballmer, a Harvard classmate of Bill Gates, joined Microsoft as its 30th employee in 1980 after leaving Stanford’s MBA program. He served as CEO from 2000 to 2014.

After leaving Microsoft, Ballmer bought the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion, setting an NBA record. Forbes now estimates the team’s value at $4.65 billion.

Ballmer’s wealth surged by approximately $6 billion last month due to a rise in Microsoft stock. He and his wife, Connie, rank among America’s top 25 philanthropists.

Who is the richest woman in the world?
The richest woman globally is Francoise Bettencourt Meyers from France.

With an estimated net worth of $99 billion as of June 1, 2024, she ranks as the 15th richest person worldwide.

Meyers inherited her wealth from her late mother, primarily through her ownership stake in cosmetics giant L’Oreal, founded by her grandfather.

Headline

Militia Attack On DRC IDP Camp, Kills 10, Mostly Women, Children

Published

5 hours ago

June 27, 2025

Editor

An armed group at the centre of a long-running ethnic conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s northeast attacked a camp for displaced people on Friday, killing 10, local sources told AFP.

Bordering Uganda, Ituri province has for years been the scene of pitched battles between the Lendu, a group mainly made up of settled farmers, and the Hema people, typically nomadic herders.

The fighting has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians and the mass displacement of many more.

Friday’s assault on the Djangi displaced persons camp was carried out by the self-proclaimed Cooperative for the Development of Congo (Codeco), a Lendu-aligned militia responsible for previous civilian massacres, the camp’s head told AFP.

“They were many and armed with firearms and machetes. They surprised us, they killed 10 displaced people, most of them women and children,” said Richard Likana.

An employee of the Red Cross, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed the attack, which took place around 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Bunia.

“They were cut up with machetes while others were shot,” the humanitarian worker added.

Congolese army Colonel Ruffin Mapela, the local administrator for Djugu territory where the camp is located, gave the same toll of 10 dead and put the number of injured at 15.

According to local and humanitarian sources, Codeco was responsible for an attack on February 10 which killed 51 people in Ituri province. Most of the victims were also displaced persons.

That raid was said to be a response to a strike by the rival Hema-led Zaire militia in the same area.

Violence between the Hema and Lendu killed thousands in gold-rich Ituri from 1999-2003, which only ended after European forces intervened.

The conflict erupted again in 2017, killing thousands more.

The violence has led to more than 1.5 million people leaving their homes, according to the UN.

AFP

Headline

Israel Wants Global Action Against Iran’s Nuclear Plans

Published

5 hours ago

June 27, 2025

Editor

Israel’s foreign minister said on Friday that the world was obliged to stop Iran from developing an atomic bomb, days after Israel claimed it had “thwarted Iran’s nuclear project” in a 12-day war.

“Israel acted at the last possible moment against an imminent threat to itself, the region, and the international community,” Gideon Saar wrote on X.

“The international community must now prevent, by any effective means, the world’s most extreme regime from obtaining the most dangerous weapon.”

Israel and Iran each claimed victory in the war that ended with a ceasefire on June 24.

The conflict erupted on June 13 when Israel launched a bombing campaign, stating it aimed to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon—an ambition Iran has consistently denied.

Following waves of Israeli attacks on nuclear and military sites, the United States bombed three key facilities, with President Donald Trump insisting it had set Iran’s nuclear programme back by “decades”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an address to the nation after the ceasefire, announced that “we have thwarted Iran’s nuclear project”.

However, there is no consensus as to how effective the strikes were.
On Friday, Iran rejected a request by UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi to visit the bombed facilities, saying it suggested “malign intent”.

The comments from Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi came after parliament approved a bill suspending cooperation with the UN watchdog.

In a post on X following the move, Saar said Iran “continues to mislead the international community and actively works to prevent effective oversight of its nuclear programme”.

Headline

We Would Have Killed Iran’s Supreme Leader If Given Opportunity – Israel

Published

9 hours ago

June 27, 2025

Editor

Defence Minister Israel Katz told media that Israel would have killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the war between the two countries if the opportunity had presented itself.

“If he had been in our sights, we would have taken him out,” Katz told Israel’s public radio station Kan Thursday evening, adding that the military had “searched a lot”.

“Khamenei understood this, went very deep underground, broke off contact with the commanders… so in the end it wasn’t realistic,” Katz told Kan.

He told Israeli television Channel 13 Thursday that Israel would cease its assassination attempts because “there is a difference between before the ceasefire and after the ceasefire”.

Katz had said during the war that Khamenei “can no longer be allowed to exist”, just days after reports that Washington vetoed Israeli plans to assassinate him.

But on Kan, Katz advised Khamenei to remain inside a bunker.

“He should learn from the late Nasrallah, who sat for a long time deep in the bunker”, he said, referring to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah’s former leader Hassan Nasrallah, who Israel killed in a Beirut air strike in September 2024.

The movements of the supreme leader, who has not left Iran since he took power, are subject to the tightest security and secrecy.

Katz said Thursday that Israel maintained its aerial superiority over Iran and that it was ready to strike again.

“We won’t let Iran develop nuclear weapons and threaten (Israel) with long-range missiles”, he said.

In his Channel 12 interview, Katz admitted that Israel does not know the location of all of Iran’s enriched uranium, but that its air strikes had destroyed the Islamic republic’s uranium enrichment capabilities.

“The material itself was not something that was supposed to be neutralised,” he said of the enriched uranium.

The impact of Israeli and US strikes on Iran’s nuclear programme has been a subject to debate.

A leaked US intelligence assessment estimated the programme to have set Iran back a few months, while Katz and other Israeli and US public figures said the damage would take years to rebuild.

Israel and Iran each claimed victory in a 12-day war that ended with a ceasefire on June 24.

The war erupted on June 13 when Israel launched a bombing campaign that it said aimed to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon — an ambition Iran has consistently denied.