By Kolawole Ojebisi
Elon Musk has displaced French luxury mogul, Bernard Arnault, to take the top spot on Forbes’ 39th annual World’s Billionaires list.
This development is attributed to Musk’s network which skyrocketed 75% to $342 billion,
The network increase is driven by rising valuations of xAI, SpaceX and a strong performance by Tesla stock over the past year.
Despite a recent market dip, he remains the first person to surpass $300 billion in wealth.
This was disclosed in a statement released by Forbes on its Website on Tuesday.
Forbes’ latest rankings show a record 3,028 billionaires worldwide, the highest since the list began in 1987.
Collectively, they are worth an unprecedented $16.1 trillion.
US President Donald Trump also saw a sharp rise in wealth, more than doubling his net worth to $5.1 billion.
This growth comes from his Trump Media & Technology Group shares and profits from recent crypto ventures.
“It’s another record-breaking year for the world’s richest people, despite financial uncertainty for many and geopolitical tensions on the rise.
“And, from Elon Musk to Howard Lutnick and the other billionaires taking over the U.S. government, they’re growing more and more powerful,” said Chase Peterson-Withorn, Forbes’ Senior Editor for Wealth.
Following Musk, the top five billionaires on the list are:
Mark Zuckerberg at No. 2 with $216 billion.
Jeff Bezos at No. 3 with $215 billion.
Larry Ellison at No. 4 with $192 billion.
Bernard Arnault & family at No. 5 with $178 billion
