Despite a brutal start to 2025 for Tesla, Elon Musk has still seen his net worth increase enough over the past 12 months to jump to the top of Forbes’ annual Billionaires List, which was released on Tuesday. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, jumped into the runner-up position following a big year for the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
Musk sits atop the magazine’s ranking of the world’s richest people with a net worth of $342 billion. That comes a year after he was ranked second, when his net worth was “only” $195 billion. Musk’s gains over the last year stem largely from Tesla, the electric car company he runs, which has seen its share price increase 55% in the last year; Musk controls roughly 20% of Tesla’s shares, according to a regulatory filing last year.
That 55% increase comes even after Tesla’s share price has been hit hard in recent months. Countless videos of people vandalizing — and in some cases, blowing up — Tesla cars have been circulating, as violent protestors have been upset with Musk’s support for President Trump and his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk recently said those who are attacking Tesla cars because of his work with the government need to “stop being psycho.” While Tesla’s stock surged following the 2024 election — Tesla hit an all-time high market cap of $1.5 trillion in December — that momentum did not carry into this year, with Tesla’s share price dropping 29% since the start of 2025.
Musk’s move into the top spot bumped French businessman Bernard Arnault and his family from the No. 1 slot. Arnault, who runs LVMH, the conglomerate that owns luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Dior, moved down to fifth place this year with a net worth of $178 billion.
Zuckerberg, as mentioned above, jumped two spots from last year and is now ranked as the world’s second-richest person, with a net worth of $216 billion. His jump coincides with Meta’s stock price increasing 20% in the last year.
And while he has not been as closely tied to President Trump as Musk, Zuckerberg’s relationship with the president has seemed to improve a great deal compared to where it was just a few years ago; Meta notably kicked President Trump off of its platforms in early 2021, following the Capitol Riot. That seemed like a lifetime ago, though, when Zuckerberg was among a who’s who of tech executives who sat behind President Trump during his inauguration in January.
Overall, the tech sector is represented more than any other sector among the world’s richest men. Six of the 10 richest men — as well as nine of the 20 richest — work in tech, according to Forbes’ rankings. And that does not even include Musk, which Forbes puts in the “automotive” sector — even though he made his initial fortune via PayPal and he runs companies like SpaceX, X and xAI. In related news, XAI acquired X last week for $45 billion, which included $12 billion in debt.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is ranked the third richest-man with a net worth of $215 billion, while Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison is ranked fourth with a net worth of $192 billion.
As for media names, Rupert Murdoch is the richest man in the media world with a net worth of $23 billion. He is ranked 87th overall this year — up 13 spots from last year. Interestingly, five of the names on the Forbes list are tied to Thomson Reuters; Sherry Brydson, the largest shareholder of Woodbridge, the investment arm of the Thomson family, is ranked as the 125th richest person, with a net worth of $16.7 billion. Liberty Media chairman John Malone also moved higher this year, going from being ranked 290th to 230th as his net worth climbed $1 billion to $10.8 billion.
You can check out the full list by clicking here.
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