(L-R) U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Vice President-elect JD Vance. Tesla stock — and Musk’s wealth — has skyrocketed thanks to his connections with the incoming administration. - Photo: Kevin Dietsch (Getty Images)
2024 was a major year for the world’s wealthiest Americans as the stock market continued to notch new highs. The S&P 500 hit more than 50 record highs over the past 12 months, with its first occurring as early as Jan. 19.
That’s meant major monetary wins for both investors and the people who control or have large stakes in some of the largest companies in the world, especially those in the broader tech industry.
Here are the billionaires who won the most in 2024. Spoiler alert: None of them gained less than $38 billion this year.
Sergey Brin
Photo: Michael Tran/AFP (Getty Images)
Sergey Brin’s wealth comes mainly from the equity he earned by co-founding Alphabet (GOOGL), the holding company behind Google, and other ventures, including the self-driving car startup Waymo and YouTube.
He owns about 6% of the company through Class B and Class C shares. Since Google went public in 2004, he’s sold more than $10 billion worth of shares, according to Bloomberg’s calculations.
Brin left the company in 2019 after serving as president since 2015. At the time, Alphabet was the third-most cash-rich company in the world, only outmatched by Microsoft (MSFT) and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A). He remains a member of Alphabet’s board of directors and a major shareholder.
As of Dec. 29, Brin is worth some $161 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Year-to-date, his net worth has shot up by more than $41 billion, or about 34%.
Larry Page
Photo: Albin Lohr-Jones/Pool via Bloomberg (Getty Images)
Although they both helped found Google and Alphabet, Lary Page is reportedly a fair bit wealthier than Brin.
Like Brin, Page relinquished some of his control of Alphabet in 2019 to CEO Sundar Pichai. Page was Google’s CEO between 1997 and August 2001, and then again between April 2011 and July 2015. At that time, he became CEO of Alphabet.
Page owns about 6% of Alphabet through Class B and Class C shares and has sold shares of both Alphabet and Google valued at more than $10 billion over the years, according to Bloomberg.
Page was an early investor in Tesla Motors (TSLA), as was Brin. He also made investments in companies like Planetary Resources, which was acquired in 2018 by a Blockchain company, and robotics firm Verity, according to Pitchbook. Kittyhawk, the electric aircraft company, was backed by Page and the “godfather of self-driving cars” but shut down in 2022.
As of publication, Page is worth some $171 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Year-to-date, his net worth has shot up by just shy of $45 billion, or more than 35%.
Michael Dell
Photo: Bridge Bennett/Bloomberg (Getty Images)
Dell Technologies (DELL) CEO Michael Dell has been — mostly — in charge of his company since he officially founded it in 1984.
As a result, he owns about half of the company, including 29 million shares held by a trust for his wife, according to Bloomberg. Over the years — including a public launch in the 1990s and a half-a-decade stint as a private company — Dell’s value has shifted.
Although the company’s stock is well below its peak of $179 per share it reached in May, shares are still up 68% year to date and trading at $118 a pop.
Nvidia (NVDA) has named Dell as the go-to company to contact about placing orders for its new Blackwell AI chips. The companies are working together on a Dell AI factory to power Elon Musk’s xAI’s Grok chatbot. Dell’s AI business has been a solid revenue generator, helping boost revenue by 34% to $11.4 billion.
The billionaire’s wealth also comes from his ownership of millions of Broadcom (AVGO) shares after Dell finalized the spin-off of VMWare in November 2021. Two years later, Broadcom acquired the company in a cash-and-share deal that converted half of Dell’s stake in VMWare to Broadcom shares and the rest into cash.
As of publication, Dell is worth some $127 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Year-to-date, his net worth has shot up by $48.6 billion, or almost 62%.
The Waltons
Photo: Rick T. Wilking (Getty Images)
Members of the Walton family — specifically Jim, Alice, and Rob Walton, pictured above from left to right — saw their wealth surge in 2024, thanks to their ownership of the company their father founded — Walmart (WMT).
Each is a billionaire in their own right. Jim Walton is worth $114 billion, while Rob Walton and Alice Walton are each worth $111 billion, having seen their wealth grow by more than $40 billion apiece, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Combined, the entire Walton clan is worth an estimated $432.4 billion and is considered the wealthiest family in the world.
Walmart last week disclosed that eight grandchildren of founder Sam Walton will be given voting rights over the family’s holdings. The family said in a statement that it wanted to “maintain an appropriate balance of family and non-family ownership,” and ensure the goals of all Walmart shareholders and the long-term success of the company remain the focus.
Walmart, which started as a small store in Arkansas back in 1962, is now a global powerhouse. And its stock has increased by about 70% in 2024 thanks to its gangbusters year that saw it deliver its strongest performance since 1988.
Jeff Bezos
Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg (Getty Images)
Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos may be the second-richest man alive, but he’s had to fight hard to keep his spot. Throughout 2024, he and some other wealthy billionaires have leap-frogged each other for those spots as their stocks went up and down.
In the end, Bezos is set to end 2024 strong, with a net worth of $243 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Year-to-date, his net worth has shot up by $66.1 billion, or 37%.
Much of that wealth comes from his almost 9% stake in Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, which he founded and once led as CEO. He’s currently the company’s executive chairman. Amazon stock has increased by 50% in 2024 to $225 per share and a market capitalization of $2.37 trillion.
Bezos is also the owner and sole shareholder in Blue Origin, a space exploration company that he has said “is not a very good business yet.”
“I think it’s going to be the best business that I’ve ever been involved in, but it’s going to take a while,” Bezos said at The New York Times DealBook Conference.
Larry Ellison
Photo: Justin Sullivan (Getty Images)
Oracle (ORCL) Chief Technology Officer and Executive Chairman Larry Ellison owes much of his wealth to the software maker, which he founded in 1977.
He owns more than 42% of Oracle, according to company filings. As the stock has grown over the year, its gains briefly pushed his net worth above Bezos’ to become the second-richest man in the world.
As of publication, Ellison is worth some $190 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Year-to-date, his net worth has shot up by $67.3 billion, or almost 55%.
In September, Oracle’s first-quarter earnings showed strong year-over-year growth, and the company has 162 cloud data centers operating or under construction. However, its second-quarter earnings fell short of expectations, sending the stock down despite notching an agreement with Meta to help with its large language models.
Jensen Huang
Photo: Nhac Nguyen/AFP (Getty Images)
Nvidia founder and chief executive Jensen Huang has seen his net worth skyrocket alongside AI hype due to demand for the company’s chips, which power some of the world’s leading AI models.
As of publication, Huang is worth about $120 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Year-to-date, his net worth has shot up by more than $75 billion, or 171.1%. For perspective, on January 1, 2023, his net worth was just $13.8 billion — about eight times less than his current net worth.
In June, Nvidia briefly surpassed Apple in total market cap and crossed the $3 trillion threshold for the first time, later briefly overtaking both Apple and Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable public company. In September, Nvidia rejoined the $3 trillion market-cap club. Despite some volatility, Nivida shares have climbed about 190% to $139 per share over the past year.
The company has become the titan of the semiconductor chip industry, partially thanks to the handful of anonymous customers that acquired almost $15 billion in chips during the second quarter of 2024. Although Nvidia will not disclose the customers, its top buyers are likely to include Google parent Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Tesla — all of whom are major players in the AI boom.
Mark Zuckerberg
Photo: Alex Wong (Getty Images)
Meta Platforms (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune comes primarily from his stake in the tech giant, which he founded about two decades ago as TheFaceBook.
As of September, he owns about 13% of the social media firm. Meta shares are up by more than 73% year-to-date as of writing. And the company seems poised to continue its winning streak.
Since Zuckerberg debuted Meta’s name — and newfound goal centered on the metaverse — the firm has invested more than $63 billion in its division for virtual and augmented reality technology. More than one million advertisers used generative AI tools to create more than 15 million ads in September, while 500 million people used the Meta AI chatbot on its social media platforms, according to Meta.
In October, Meta raised its full-year capital expenditure estimates to $38-40 billion, driven by AI-related costs including data centers and research and development. It expects “significant capital expenditures growth in 2025” and “significant acceleration in infrastructure expense growth next year.”
As of publication, Zuckerberg is worth some $212 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Year-to-date, his net worth has shot up by $84.2 billion, or almost 66%.
Elon Musk
Photo: Anna Moneymaker (Getty Images)
Elon Musk is — by far — the wealthiest man alive. While that was also true at the start of 2024, he, Bezos, and Zuckerberg played a few games of leapfrog. Toward the end of the year, Musk’s lead solidified.
The value of his aerospace company, SpaceX, grew to $350 billion this month, while his artificial intelligence start-up xAI has raised $6 billion at a $50 billion valuation less than two years after he founded it. Although some of its gains have been lost, Tesla stock is still up by more than 70% year-to-date, mostly thanks to a post-election surge tied to Musk’s relationship with the next presidential administration. Musk owns about 13% of the electric vehicle company, which is his biggest asset.
He also owns 42% of SpaceX and 79% of X Corp, the social media platform he purchased for $44 billion in 2022; X’s value has gone down drastically since he bought the company, formerly called Twitter. Plus, he has stakes in xAI, tunneling firm The Boring Company, and brain chip startup Neuralink, his other startups.
As of Dec. 29, Musk is worth some $452 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Year-to-date, his net worth has shot up by $223 billion, or 97%.
—Britney Nguyen, Francisco Velasquez, and Rocio Fabbro, contributed to this article
