From rich lists and tech entrepreneurs to the safest countries in the world – here are the 10 stories that Forbes readers checked out the most in 2025.
10. Top 20 companies young Australians most want to work for in 2025
Headquartered everywhere from Sydney to Silicon Valley, the companies on Hatch’s Hotlist highlight where Gen Z and Millennials see the most opportunity – from homegrown names like Canva and Qantas to global giants like Google and Amazon.
9. Ed Craven & the untold story of Stake: Inside the $5.6 billion rise of crypto’s biggest high rollers
Crypto casinos, chart-topping rappers, and record-breaking mansions: the newest entries into Forbes Australia’s 50 Richest, Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, reveal how they skated the edge of legality to build their combined US$5.6 billion fortune.
8. Who is Lucy Liu? The anti-bank angel who helped turn Airwallex into a $10 billion giant
Our Issue 17 cover star, Lucy Liu, was a hot topic. And it makes sense – she’s the co-founder of the fastest-growing unicorn to emerge from Australia, Airwallex, which has raised over $1 billion and serves 150,000 customers worldwide. Liu even invested herself – she wrote a $1 million cheque, giving rise to a company now valued almost 10,000 times that.
7. The safest countries in the world, per 2025 Global Peace Index
With the political landscape as volatile as it is, our readers wanted to know how safe their travel destinations would be in 2025. Every year, the Institute for Economics and Peace publishes its Global Peace Index, and this year Iceland took the top spot, followed by Ireland, New Zealand, Austria and Switzerland.
6. Elon Musk is officially $122 billion poorer than his peak—As Tesla stock erases almost all of its election rally
The world’s richest man Elon Musk, who doubles as President Donald Trump’s chief of cost-cutting, took a sizeable hit to his net worth in March as the stock market shudders at Trump’s tariffs, causing shares of Musk’s multinational car company Tesla to flounder.
5. Forbes Australia’s 30 Under 30 for 2025
From pipe robots to Netflix heroes, 2025’s 30 Under 30 list was jam-packed with Australia’s brightest entrepreneurs, founders and stars, each making waves in their respective industries. Their success is not only reflected in funding (of which our founders have banked more than $150 million in capital), but also viewership, streams and sales.
4. How two Melbourne engineers solved the drone industry’s ‘holy grail’
Ken King and Leonard Hall say we’ve entered “the age of the industrial flying robot.” Their company, Freespace Operations, claims to have cracked what many in the drone industry once called a holy grail: getting multiple autonomous aircraft to share a heavy load in flight.
3. Australia’s 50 Richest 2025
Forbes Australia’s annual top 50 rich list launched in February this year, with mining baroness Gina Rinehart in top spot (again) despite a 4% decline in her wealth to $29 billion. The collective wealth of the nation’s richest jumped to $243 billion, up 10% from a year ago.
2. Where is Belle Gibson now? What happened to the ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ con artist?
Early influencer Belle Gibson rose to fame as a self-proclaimed health guru who “cured” her brain cancer through wellness and clean living. As highlighted in Netflix’s limited series Apple Cider Vinegar, she was ultimately exposed as a fraud. One of our most-read stories explored where Gibson is today – and whether she ever faced repercussions for her actions.
1. Forbes World’s Billionaires List 2025: The Top 200
Forbes put out its annual global rich list in April this year, and at the time, Tesla founder Elon Musk topped the list with a net worth of US$342 billion. All in all, the world’s billionaires were worth about US$16.1 trillion (up nearly US$2 trillion on 2024), with the most billionaires located in the U.S, followed by China and India.
Look back on the week that was with hand-picked articles from Australia and around the world. Sign up to the Forbes Australia newsletter here or become a member here.
