The small group of people worth a dozen digits has hit a record high, just as Elon Musk approaches trillionaire territory.
illustration by Neil Jamieson for Forbes
Another year, another record for the very richest of the world’s wealthiest people. There are now 20 people on the planet with a net worth of $100 billion or more, according to Forbes’ 2026 World’s Billionaires list. That’s up from 15 last year, and none less than a decade ago.
These 20 “centi-billionaires” have a collective net worth of $3.8 trillion, about $1.4 trillion more than last year. Despite making up just 0.6% of the world’s 3,428 billionaires, this group now accounts for a staggering 19% of all billionaire wealth.
At the top of them all is Elon Musk, who has continued to smash records over the past year. He became the first person to be worth more than $500 billion in October, then crossed the $600 billion and $700 billion marks in December. In February, his wealth soared past $800 billion, after he merged his rocket maker SpaceX with his artificial intelligence and social media company xAI in a deal valuing the combined company at $1.25 trillion. A successful IPO of the firm later this year could make Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
Such a milestone was unthinkable until recently. The first edition of the World’s Billionaires list, published in 1987, featured just two people worth more than $10 billion. Bill Gates briefly became a centibillionaire in 1999 during the dotcom bubble, but it took until 2017 for the next person to achieve the feat, Jeff Bezos. The Amazon founder was also the first to break the $200 billion barrier, in 2020, and there are now five tycoons with net worths above that threshold, up from three last year. But the only person besides Musk whose wealth has topped $300 billion is Oracle’s Larry Ellison, whose net worth briefly crossed the $400 billion mark in September before falling to $190 billion over the next six months.
This level of wealth is hard to lose: Everyone who was a member of the $100 Billion Club on last year’s list remains a member today. And now there are five notable additions on this year’s ranking: L’Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim Helú, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and tech baron Michael Dell.
There are several more billionaires knocking on the door including Indian industrialist Mukesh Ambani (estimated fortune: $99.7 billion), crypto titan Giancarlo Devasini of Tether ($89.3 billion), digital trading pioneer Thomas Peterffy ($82.9 billion) and Koch, Inc. heiress Julia Koch ($81.2 billion).
Here is the full roster of the world’s most exclusive club, the $100 Billion Club, from least to most super-rich.
NET WORTHS ARE AS OF MARCH 1, 2026
#20. Françoise Bettencourt Meyers & family
Net worth: $100 billion (up $18.4 billion)
Source of wealth: L’Oréal
Citizenship: France
The 72-year-old granddaughter of L’Oréal’s founder briefly became the world’s first female centibillionaire in 2024. She stepped down from the board of the French beauty giant in 2025, bringing her 28-year tenure to a close. She had also served as vice-chair since 2020, a position that was taken over by her son Jean-Victor Meyers. The transition didn’t seem to impact L’Oréal’s business, with the firm growing revenues by 4%, to $51 billion, in 2025, powered by strong sales in its two largest markets, the U.S. and China.
#19. Bill Gates
Net worth: $108 billion (flat)
Source of wealth: Microsoft
Citizenship: United States
Gates’ net worth is unchanged from a year ago, landing him lower on the World’s Billionaires list than he’s been in decades. While Microsoft’s stock barely budged over the past year, Gates made significant announcements about his philanthropy. Last May, he reiterated his plan to give 99% of his wealth to his Gates Foundation and said that the charity will spend $200 billion over the next two decades and “sunset its operations” by 2045. Gates and his ex-wife Melinda French Gates (estimated net worth: $30.3 billion) had originally planned to close down the foundation 20 years after their deaths. Melinda left the Gates Foundation in 2024 and received $12.5 billion from Bill for her own philanthropy.
#18. Michael Bloomberg
Net worth: $109 billion (up $4 billion)
Source of wealth: Bloomberg LP
Citizenship: United States
The cofounder of financial data and media giant Bloomberg LP granted more than $500 million to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in 2025 and earmarked another $10 million to establish charter schools in partnership with them. Last November, he also announced a $100 million investment to cut methane emissions. Despite giving away a total of $4.3 billion in 2025, Bloomberg is still $4 billion richer this year.
#17. Changpeng Zhao
Net worth: $110 billion (up $47.1 billion)
Source of wealth: Cryptocurrency exchange
Citizenship: Canada
It’s been a good year for the founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Last March, Abu Dhabi state-owned investment firm MGX invested $2 billion in Binance. MGX paid for its stake in USD1, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar that’s issued by World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm backed by the families of President Donald Trump and his billionaire special envoy, Steve Witkoff. Then in October, Zhao received a pardon from Trump, just about a year after he finished serving a four-month prison sentence for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program at Binance.
#16. Carlos Slim Helu & family
Net worth: $125 billion (up $42.5 billion)
Source of wealth: Telecom
Citizenship: Mexico
The Mexican telecom mogul’s net worth grew by more than 50% over the past year, thanks in large part to a huge runup in the share price of América Móvil, Latin America’s biggest mobile telecom firm, in which he owns a majority stake. Grupo Carso, a large conglomerate where Slim and his family own 76% of the shares, also completed major deals, including a $2 billion contract with Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex in September and the $600 million acquisition of Russian oil giant Lukoil’s Mexican assets in January.
#15. Steve Ballmer
Net worth: $126 billion (up $8 billion)
Source of wealth: Microsoft
Citizenship: United States
The former Microsoft CEO is $8 billion richer than he was last year, partly due to the booming value of his NBA team, the Los Angeles Clippers. Ballmer bought the team for $2 billion in 2014—a bargain price compared to its estimated $7.5 billion valuation today, which makes it the fourth-most valuable franchise in the league. Ballmer also gave some $1.5 billion away in 2025, including grants to provide support for children and families affected by the January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles.
#14. Alice Walton
Net worth: $134 billion (up $33 billion)
Source of wealth: Walmart
Citizenship: United States
The world’s richest woman and Walmart heiress opened the campus of her Alice L. Walton School of Medicine in Bentonville, Arkansas in July. The nonprofit medical school—which she founded in 2021—also inaugurated its first class of 48 medical students, who will embark on a four-year medical program that combines traditional medical education with the arts and humanities.
#13. Michael Dell
Net worth: $141 billion (up $43.3 billion)
Source of wealth: Dell Technologies
Citizenship: United States
Dell and his wife Susan made headlines in December with their pledge to donate $6.25 billion to fund new investment accounts for about 25 million children in the U.S. The program is designed to build upon the Trump administration’s “Trump savings accounts,” which will fund savings accounts with $1,000 each for children born between January 1, 2025 and January 1, 2029. The Dells are set to seed accounts with $250 for children aged 10 or under who were born before that January 1, 2025 cutoff date.
#12. Jim Walton & family
Net worth: $143 billion (up $34 billion)
Source of wealth: Walmart
Citizenship: United States
#11: Rob Walton & family
Net worth:$146 billion (up $36 billion)
Source of wealth: Walmart
Citizenship: United States
The two brothers, who are sons of Walmart founder Sam Walton (d. 1992), are each more than $30 billion richer than they were in 2025, thanks in part to Walmart shares gaining 30% over the past year. Rob’s investment in the NFL’s Denver Broncos, which he bought alongside a larger ownership group in 2022 for $4.65 billion, has also been a good bet: the team is now worth an estimated $6.6 billion (net of debt).
#10. Amancio Ortega
Net worth: $148 billion (up $24 billion)
Source of wealth: Zara
Citizenship: Spain
The Zara founder and largest shareholder of Inditex—the Madrid-listed parent of Zara and other brands including Massimo Dutti and Pull & Bear—received his largest-ever dividend, totaling more than $3 billion (pre-tax), in 2025. Ortega has plowed some of it into expanding his enormous real estate empire, picking up the Sabadell Financial Center office tower in downtown Miami for $274 million in September and the iconic Canada Post office building in Vancouver for $860 million two months later.
#9. Warren Buffett
Net worth:$149 billion (down $5 billion)
Source of wealth: Berkshire Hathaway
Citizenship: United States
The “Oracle of Omaha” retired as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of 2025, concluding a legendary 60-year run at the helm of the sprawling conglomerate and handing the reins to Greg Abel, a newcomer to this year’s World Billionaires list. In the final edition of his eagerly-awaited shareholder letters, Buffett (who remains chairman) signed off with some advice for all his admirers: “Choose your heroes very carefully and then emulate them. You will never be perfect, but you can always be better.”
#8. Jensen Huang
Net worth: $154 billion (up $55.3 billion)
Source of wealth: Semiconductors
Citizenship: United States
Nvidia, the graphics-chip maker that Huang cofounded in 1993, became the first company worth more than $5 trillion in October, before paring back some of the gains. Nvidia saw its shares rise by more than 40% over the past year thanks to its dominant position providing chips to the booming AI industry,powering Huang into the ranks of the world’s ten richest people. Nvidia dominated the headlines in 2025, from major investments in AI model makers ($30 billion in OpenAI, $10 billion in Anthropic) to acquisitions ($20 billion for Groq) and partnerships with rivals ($5 billion in Intel shares).
#7. Bernard Arnault & family
Net worth: $171 billion (down $7 billion)
Source of wealth: LVMH
Citizenship: France
The CEO of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH is one of only three members of the $100 Billion Club who got poorer over the past year, alongside Buffett and Oracle’s Larry Ellison. In a year marked by Donald Trump’s tariff wars, LVMH’s revenues fell by 5%, to $94 billion, in 2025, but the firm launched a ten-year partnership with Formula 1 and recovered in the second half of the year with stronger sales in the U.S. and Asia. In January, Arnault was inducted into France’s Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, recognizing his contributions to France’s intellectual and civic life.
#6. Larry Ellison
Net worth: $190 billion (down $2 billion)
Source of wealth: Oracle
Citizenship: United States
The Oracle cofounder has had a rollercoaster year. In July, he and his son David closed the merger of Paramount and David’s Skydance Media. Three months later, Larry notched the biggest single-day wealth gain ever tracked by Forbes and got nearly $100 billion richer thanks to Oracle’s soaring stock, propelling him past the $400 billion mark. Then Oracle stock sunk, shaving off nearly half his fortune, and Warner Bros. rebuffed a takeover from Paramount in December, choosing to merge with Netflix instead. In January, the U.S. and China finalized a deal that saw Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX take over TikTok’s U.S. operations, with Oracle gaining a 15% stake. A month later, the Ellisons finally won the war for Warner Bros., announcing a $110 billion deal that will leave them in control of one of the largest media empires in the country.
#5. Mark Zuckerberg
Net worth: $222 billion (up $6 billion)
Source of wealth: Facebook
Citizenship: United States
The Meta cofounder and CEO continued to invest in artificial intelligence in 2025, while also doubling down on his crusade for free speech on Meta’s platforms. The company officially ended third-party fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram in April, shifting to a “community notes” system similar to that of Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter). Zuckerberg’s social media giant spent some $70 billion on servers, data centers and network infrastructure related to AI in 2025 and announced plans to spend up to $169 billion on these efforts in 2026. In March, Zuckerberg joined the legion of billionaires fleeing California over the state’s proposed wealth tax and dropped $170 million to buy a home on Miami’s ultra-exclusive Indian Creek island, known as the “Billionaire Bunker,” with residents including Jeff Bezos, Jared Kushner and Carl Icahn.
#4. Jeff Bezos
Net worth: $224 billion (up $9 billion)
Source of wealth: Amazon
Citizenship: United States
Bezos tied the knot with his girlfriend Lauren Sánchez in an extravagant three-day ceremony in Venice last July, an affair that cost an estimated $20 million and featured a star-studded guest list featuring the likes of Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brady and the Kardashians. His aerospace company Blue Origin also conducted two successful launches of its New Glenn rocket in 2025, marking a step forward in its battle to catch up to Musk’s SpaceX. Amid all this spending, Bezos cut about 30% of the Washington Post‘s workforce in February, slashing most of his newspaper’s sports and international coverage.
#3. Sergey Brin
Net worth: $237 billion (up $99 billion)
Source of wealth: Google
Citizenship: United States
#2. Larry Page
Net worth: $257 billion (up $113 billion)
Source of wealth: Google
Citizenship: United States
The Google cofounders nearly doubled their net worths over the past year as shares of Google parent Alphabet soared by 80%. The tech giant launched its latest AI model, Gemini 3—which it trained on its own in-house chips, not Nvidia’s—in November, and it has outperformed OpenAI’s ChatGPT by some key measures. In December and January, Page spent a total of $174 million to buy two homes in Florida in a bid to escape the proposed wealth tax on billionaires in California that could leave him with a hefty bill if it goes before voters and is approved in November.
#1. Elon Musk
Net worth: $839 billion (up $497 billion)
Source of wealth: Tesla, SpaceX
Citizenship: United States
Tesla shareholders rejoiced when Musk ended his 130-day stint as head of President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in May to refocus on the electric vehicle maker. In November, Musk was awarded a historic pay package that could earn him $1 trillion in additional stock if Tesla achieves certain performance milestones over the next 10 years. A month later, the Delaware Supreme Court restored Tesla stock options currently worth $115 billion to Musk that were voided by a lower court in 2024. And just last month, Musk merged his rocket maker SpaceX with his AI firm xAI—which he had already merged with his social network X (formerly Twitter) in 2025—in a deal valuing the combined company at $1.25 trillion. That set the stage for a potential IPO later this year and put Musk on the path to becoming the world’s first trillionaire.
This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD
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