When the average person dreams of obtaining incredible wealth, they likely opt for a lottery ticket or try to find the best casino bonuses to win a substantial sum of money. But for these twenty people, their billions of dollars originate from entirely different sources—from founding companies, being heirs to family fortunes, or becoming skilled businesspeople.
20. Gautam Adani ($85.1 Billion)
In 2022, Gautam Adani was the wealthiest person in Asia, but a controversy accusing him of illegal behavior cost him millions of dollars, reducing his net worth. His wealth is still immense at over $85 billion, and he made this fortune by founding the Adani Group.
19. Francoise Bettencourt Meyers ($86.6 Billion)
Francoise Bettencourt Meyers is the wealthiest woman in the world. In 2023, she became the first female to reach a net worth of $100 billion, though her net worth has since dropped slightly. She’s the heir to the L’Oreal fortune and wears many hats as a businesswoman, philanthropist, and writer.
18. Rob Walton ($90.8 Billion)
Rob Walton is one of the heirs to the Walmart fortune. He was chairman of Walmart’s board of directors until 2015. He still works with nonprofits and educational programs. Before his time at Walmart, he was a partner at a law firm.
17. Carlos Slim Helú ($91 Billion)
Carlos Slim Helú has managed to amass his fortune through his company, América Móvil. Although the company’s primary focus is telecommunications, it’s also involved in many other industries.
16. Jim Walton ($92.4 Billion)
Jim Walton, younger brother to Rob Walton, is another heir to the Walmart fortune. Like his brother, he served on the Walmart board of directors and worked in other high-profile positions, including as the chair of Arvest Bank Group.
15. Michael Dell ($96 Billion)
College dropout Michael Dell is now a multi-billionaire. While at the University of Texas, he started the company that’s now known as Dell. The company took off quickly, and he left school without looking back.
14. Michael Bloomberg ($104 Billion)
The well-known businessman and politician Michael Bloomberg made his fortune by founding Bloomberg LP, a media and financial software company. Throughout his career, he’s also served as the mayor of New York and ran a presidential campaign, though he left the campaign and supported candidate Joe Biden.
13. Jensen Huang ($109 Billion)
Jensen Huang is the founder, CEO, and president of NVIDIA, the widely known tech company that invented the GPU (graphics processing unit) that helps speed up computer processing. Naturally, being the founder of a company that brought this to the computing world has paid off substantially.
12. Mukesh Ambani ($114 Billion)
Mukesh Ambani is Reliance Industries’ managing director and the richest person in India. Reliance Industries is a massive international conglomerate involved in various industries, from gas to media and retail.
11. Amancio Ortega ($115 Billion)
The richest person in Spain is Amancio Ortega, thanks to his development of the fast fashion business model. He founded Inditex, the parent company of popular retailers like Zara.
10. Steve Ballmer ($123.8 Billion)
Harvard and Stanford graduate Steve Ballmer was the CEO of Microsoft for 14 years. The most interesting thing about Ballmer is he’s the only $100 billionaire who did not create a company; he earned his fortune as an employee and shareholder of Microsoft.
9. Sergey Brin ($130 Billion)
Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin has become one of the wealthiest people in the world thanks to the tech company. Until 2019, he served as the president of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.
8. Bill Gates ($132 Billion)
Bill Gates is well-known for being a co-founder of Microsoft and earning his fortune there. However, many may not know that Gates’s computer programming skills started impressing those around him when he was just 13.
7. Larry Page ($135.8 Billion)
Google’s other co-founder, Larry Page, has become incredibly wealthy through the company. He and Brin have been incredibly involved in the operations of Google and its parent company, Alphabet. The two created Google wanting to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” They did just that, and it paid off handsomely for the pair.
6. Warren Buffet ($139.9 Billion)
The Oracle of Omaha, more commonly known as Warren Buffet, made considerable wealth through his powerful holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. Though he’s incredibly rich, Buffet has a reputation for being a frugal person—he still lives in the humble home he bought in the 1950s.
5. Larry Ellison ($169.8 Billion)
Larry Ellison co-founded the IT software company Oracle, which has made a name for itself with its Oracle database product—an essential tool for many corporate IT operations. Though his company has made him one of the wealthiest people in the world, many people are unfamiliar with precisely what Oracle offers.
4. Mark Zuckerberg ($184.8 Billion)
One of the best-known names on this list is Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook and Meta Platforms. At the age of 23, he made a name for himself as the youngest self-made billionaire when Facebook was skyrocketing to success.
3. Bernard Arnault ($185.3 Billion)
Despite being the third-richest person in the world, Bernard Arnault’s name doesn’t immediately jump to our minds when we think of the uber-wealthy. Arnault is the founder of LVMH, the parent company of luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, which has earned him his immense fortune.
2. Jeff Bezos ($195.7 Billion)
Jeff Bezos brought the world Amazon, and Amazon brought Bezos a fortune, earning him the position of the second-richest person in the world.
1. Elon Musk ($244.8 Billion)
Tesla’s co-founder Elon Musk has secured the position of being the richest person in the world by a significant margin.
Conclusion
Whether they’re tech giants, brilliant investors, or heirs to vast fortunes, these twenty people have something in common: they’re the richest people in the world. Even in their wildest dream, most people can barely imagine having the amount of money the richest people in the world possess.
