Sergey Brin leapfrogged Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos on Tuesday to become the world’s third-richest person, ranking again behind fellow Google cofounder Larry Page as parent firm Alphabet stock rallied to its latest milestone.
The Google parent’s stock hit a new record after a new AI deal with Apple, pushing its market value above $4 trillion.
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Key Facts
Shares of Alphabet rose 1.3% to just over $337 as of Tuesday afternoon, paring back earlier gains as high as 2.4% and adding to a 6.6% rally over the previous seven trading sessions.
Oracle’s shares traded down 1.5%, while shares of Amazon declined nearly 2%.
Alphabet became the fourth company with a market value of $4 trillion on Monday, joining Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple to reach the milestone, though the latter two firms have since dropped below the threshold.
Another boost for Alphabet’s stock followed a new deal between Apple and Google, in which Apple said Monday it would use Google’s Gemini for the foundation of its AI models and the next generation of Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant and chatbot.
Big Number
65%. That’s how much Alphabet’s stock grew by in 2025, the largest single-year jump for the company since 2009, when shares surged by nearly 93%.
Forbes Valuation
Brin’s net worth grew by $4.9 billion (1.9%) to $255.6 billion, ranking him behind Page ($277 billion) and Tesla’s Elon Musk ($725.3 billion), according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List. Bezos ranks as the fourth-richest person in the world with a fortune estimated at $253.2 billion, and Ellison ranks fifth with a net worth approximated at $251.3 billion. Brin, who holds fewer shares of Alphabet’s Class C stock, has been more active selling his Alphabet equity and donating millions of his Alphabet and Tesla shares in recent years to research on Parkinson’s disease.
Key Background
Alphabet emerged as a leader in AI in 2025, rallying even as investors expressed growing fears that AI-backed tech stocks were overinflated. Google released Gemini 3, the latest iteration of its AI model, in November to broader applause, weeks after the company unveiled Ironwood, the seventh generation of its AI chips amid growing competition with Nvidia. Citi analysts wrote in a note earlier this month that Alphabet was among its top picks for growth in 2026, arguing 70% of Google Cloud customers use its AI products and that Google has “the chip, the infrastructure capacity, and the model amid growing demand.” Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Deepak Mathivanan wrote on Jan. 8 that Google has the “strongest footprint” among AI firms, arguing the company’s “decade-long investments” prevent its competitors from catching up.
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