A.I. Boom: Only Tech Billionaires Got Richer This Year
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In 2026, getting rich apparently means making money from technology: The world’s tech billionaires added a combined $845 billion (about €752 billion) in the first nine months of the year, the most ever for that period. All other billionaires lost a combined $62 billion (about €55 billion). That is the finding of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
A Fifth Holds More Than a Third
About 100 tech fortunes now add up to $4.6 trillion (about €4.1 trillion). That is 36 percent of the wealth of the world’s 500 richest people, even though tech entrepreneurs make up only about a fifth of that group. Nine of the 10 richest people owe their fortunes to U.S. tech companies.
By far the biggest winner is Elon Musk. His net worth grew by $310 billion (about €276 billion) from January through September, roughly 40 percent of the total gain among the top 500. After the merger of SpaceX with xAI and the SpaceX I.P.O., Mr. Musk briefly became the first trillionaire in history. Michael Dell is profiting from the data center business; his fortune rose 81 percent to $254 billion. Mark Zuckerberg recently gained $23 billion after Meta’s stock jumped 27 percent in September following the launch of its A.I. assistant Muse. New fortunes are also emerging along the supply chain, for instance at the Taiwanese server supplier King Slide, whose founder, Lin Tsung-chi, has joined the billionaires’ club.
Oracle’s Founder Is the Big Loser
Not every A.I. bet pays off. Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, has lost $196 billion (about €174 billion) within a year, after briefly becoming the world’s richest person in September 2025. Investors are worried about Oracle’s debt-financed spending on A.I. infrastructure, and the cost of credit default swaps on Oracle bonds is near a record high. Back in the spring, the investment pressure led Oracle to cut thousands of jobs.
The party has also cooled lately. The wealth of the 500 richest people peaked at $13.4 trillion in mid-June and has since fallen 6 percent to $12.6 trillion.
Wealth Taxes in Sight
The concentration of wealth is drawing political attention. In November, California voters will decide on a wealth tax for billionaires, and Washington, New York, Illinois and Rhode Island have also debated similar proposals. James Mazeau, an economist at UBS, points out that many of the largest fortunes belong to relatively young tech entrepreneurs, whose wealth could keep compounding for decades.
