Author: Abby Schultz; Source: Barron's
The rankings of the world's richest people, dominated by tech giants, underwent a reshuffle in October due to fluctuations in company stock prices.
That's right, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Tesla CEO Elon Musk still holds the title of the world's richest person, with a net worth of $469 billion as of the end of October. Although Tesla's stock price fell 4.6% on Thursday, many AI stocks were also correcting, and this decline did not shake his position.Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison remained firmly in second place, with a net worth of $323 billion. At the beginning of this year, Ellison was ranked fourth on the Bloomberg Billionaires list, but Oracle's stock price surged after the company reported much better-than-expected earnings on September 9, propelling him to second place by the end of the third quarter. He owns approximately 41% of the enterprise software maker, making him the company's largest shareholder. According to Barron's analysis, Ellison's wealth has also benefited from the company's stock buyback strategy over the years. His 1.2 billion shares once represented approximately 23% of the company's stock. Oracle's recent stock price increase is entirely attributed to the company's rapid development in the field of AI. The latest financial report shows a surge in demand for the company's cloud AI service leasing business. However, AI has had the opposite effect on the wealth of Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg. After announcing on Thursday that future capital expenditures on AI would exceed previous expectations, Meta's stock price plummeted 11%. As investors worried that Meta's spending on AI would impact company earnings, a sell-off caused Mark Zuckerberg, who owns about 13% of the company, to fall from third place on the rich list on September 30 to fifth place on Friday. His net worth fell from $258 billion to $229 billion that month. Meanwhile, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos surpassed Zuckerberg to take third place with a net worth of $265 billion. Amazon's stock surged 9.6% on Friday, closing at a record high of $244.22 per share, after reporting better-than-expected earnings the previous day. According to Bloomberg data, Bezos owns about 8.6% of Amazon's shares. Apart from Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of French luxury goods giant LVMH (ranked seventh with a net worth of $193 billion), the wealth accumulation of the other nine of the world's top ten richest people is inseparable from the technology industry. Google co-founders Larry Page ($244 billion) and Sergey Brin ($228 billion) ranked fourth and sixth respectively, while former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer followed closely behind Arnault, ranking eighth with a net worth of $178 billion. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang currently ranks ninth, up from twelfth at the beginning of the year, with a net worth of $176 billion. According to Bloomberg, Huang holds approximately 3.5% of Nvidia's shares. Nvidia's stock price has surged 50% this year, and on Wednesday, the company's market capitalization surpassed the $5 trillion mark for the first time, setting a new record. (However, Nvidia's stock price fell slightly to $202.49 on Friday after closing at $207.04 on Wednesday). Michael Dell, CEO of computer manufacturer Dell, ranked tenth with a net worth of $164 billion, replacing Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett announced in May that he would step down as CEO at the end of the year. Berkshire Hathaway reported a 33% increase in operating profit on Saturday, but its stock price has been under pressure since Buffett announced his resignation. Buffett currently ranks eleventh on Bloomberg's richest list with a net worth of $144 billion. The top ten richest people, including Arnault, have all seen significant increases in their wealth this year, thanks to a 16.3% rise in the S&P 500. Of course, ranking the world's richest person involves some speculation, and the rankings are subject to change. Most billionaires' wealth is not limited to publicly traded stocks but also includes shares in privately held companies that are difficult to value. While most names on the year-end list are likely to remain unchanged, fluctuations in the rankings are expected to continue.