20 Richest People in the World—and How They Made Their Fortunes

The wealthiest people in the world include Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, among others.

There's a reason why the TV show Billions is so big—people are obsessed with billionaires and fascinated by the richest people in the world. (See, for example, Jeff Bezos' 4+ million followers and counting on Instagram and the endurance of shows like Shark Tank.) Some of the obsession is aspirational, an idealistic view of major American dream success stories, while much is critical—think of the uproar when Kylie Jenner, who was born into a family of astronomical wealth and connections, was briefly christened the "youngest self-made billionaire" ever.

There's also a more morbid side to the uber-rich and how they live: America, a nation where over 37 million people live beneath the poverty line and an estimated 38 million people rely on government assistance for food, has produced more billionaires than any other country on the planet. Three beloved and space-obsessed billionaires—Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson—could together end world hunger and have plenty leftover for their yachts.

So who are the richest people in the world and how did they amass so much wealth? As it turns out, for most, there's a lot more at play than just the epidemic of hustle culture.

20 Richest People in the World

1. Bernard Arnault: Net Worth $190 Billion

Bernard Arnault is the CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton SE, the largest group of luxury brands on the planet. His father was a wealthy construction magnate. Arnault started his career as an engineer for the Ferret-Savinel construction company, eventually becoming president of the firm.

In 1985, he spent $15 million of his riches from that company to buy the Christian Dior fashion label, and his empire kept growing from there, with more than 70 brands including Louis Vuitton, Sephora, Céline, DKNY, Fendi and Guerlain. His firm acquired Tiffany & Co. in January 2021 for $15.8 billion. As of 2023, Bloomberg estimates his fortune to be around $190 billion, making him the richest person in the world.

2. Elon Musk: Net Worth $178 Billion

The son of Errol Musk, who once owned an emerald mine in Zambia, Elon Musk once said of his family's wealth growing up, "We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe."

In 1995, Musk co-founded Zip2, which was sold to Compaq in 1999 for $300 million; Musk netted $22 million for his shares. In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, one of the first-ever federally-insured online banks, but was replaced as CEO later that year. In 2000, X.com and Confinity—which owned PayPal—merged. When eBay purchased PayPal in 2002, Musk netted more than $100 million for his shares.

In May 2002, Musk invested $100 million to found SpaceX. Two years later, he invested $6.5 million in the Tesla Series A, becoming CEO of Tesla in 2008. The brand's stock skyrocketed under Musk, peaking (so far) in July 2020 when it overtook Toyota as the most valuable motor vehicle brand in the world.

In 2016, Musk founded The Boring Company (get it?) to build tunnels, including one under the Las Vegas Convention Center, as well as Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup that aims to implant artificial intelligence into the human brain, a venture about which experts are rather skeptical.

Musk became the largest shareholder of Twitter in April 2022, a move that coincided with a steep slide of Tesla's stock, resulting in Musk's net worth shrinking by a reported $182 billion in one year.

In addition, Musk has been the subject of numerous lawsuits, including a shareholder suit over his SolarCity venture that he won, a settled Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) suit over Tesla, and a defamation suit that he later won.

And in late October 2022, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion.

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3. Jeff Bezos: Net Worth $122 Billion

Jeff Bezos is worth $122 billion according to Bloomberg, making him the third richest man on the planet—and he had plenty of help getting there. After leaving his cushy hedge fund job in 1994, he secured a sweet $250,000 loan from his parents to start Amazon. The mega-retailer began as a bookstore, then expanded to music and video, and now sells literally just about everything you can possibly imagine—but makes most of its profits from its Amazon Web Services branch.

Needless to say, Amazon is a major success, which places it under some rightful scrutiny of the company's treatment of its workers. Amazon has documented a lack of worker breaks to use the restroom, has been accused of not providing protection for employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, and only in recent years relented on allowing workers to form unions. In a rather tone-deaf move, upon completing his trip to space via his Blue Origin company, Bezos gushed, "I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this. Seriously, for every Amazon customer out there and every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my heart very much. It's very appreciated."

4. Bill Gates: Net Worth $116 Billion

Bill Gates, once the richest man on Earth, developed an early interest in computers with childhood pal Paul Allen. Gates joined Allen to work at Honeywell, then dropped out of Harvard to start their own software company together. Gates' mother, Mary Maxwell Gates, was a teacher who was acquainted with IBM chairman John Opel through their work with the United Way. In 1980, Mary introduced Opel to Bill Gates' and Allen's then-fledgling company, Microsoft—and Opel adopted the software, launching the company (and Bill's net worth) into the stratosphere.

Allen left Microsoft in the early 1980s following a cancer diagnosis, and Gates remained with the company. In 1985, Microsoft was sold commercially for the first time, with numerous versions being released since—but also a hefty share of controversy and an anti-trust lawsuit.

Gates officially left his role at Microsoft in 2008 and now earns the bulk of his massive wealth through his stocks and investments, focusing most of his efforts on philanthropy. He is co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with his now ex-wife.

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5. Warren Buffett: Net Worth $107 Billion

Warren Buffett is the son of late congressman and stockbroker Howard Buffett. Warren started investing when he was just 11 years old and filed taxes for the first time when he was just 13 years old. He worked consistently throughout his childhood in various ventures ranging from delivering newspapers to selling chewing gum and magazines. The "Oracle of Omaha" studied under investor Benjamin Graham and later worked with him before starting his own partnerships. Buffett became a millionaire in 1962 at age 31 and acquired Berkshire Hathaway, which subsequently purchased shares of companies including Coca-Cola and The Washington Post. With investments in everything from Dairy Queen to GEICO insurance, Buffett still lives in the Omaha home he purchased for $31,500 in 1958.

Buffett has been vocal about tax reform and the wealthiest Americans paying their fair share, despite he himself avoiding paying much in income tax at all.

6. Larry Ellison: Net Worth $102 Billion

Larry Ellison created and sold the Oracle database to the CIA before expanding its systems for widespread use. The business wasn't smooth sailing, and the company's aggressive sales tactics eventually led to its bankruptcy and laying off 10 percent of its staff, plus class-action lawsuits against Oracle. Ellison has also been accused of ripping off IBM to become one of the wealthiest people on the planet.

In 1997, Ellison was named director of Apple, where he remained until 2002.

Ellison's Oracle paydays are the stuff of legend, for better or worse: In 2005, he made a base salary of $975,000, plus a $6.5 million bonus and $955,100 in further compensation. (The same year, Ellison agreed to pay $100 million in Oracle's name to charity to settle an insider trading lawsuit.)

Two years later, he was paid a $1 million base salary, an $8.3 million bonus, plus more than $50 million in options. He made more than $84 million in 2008, and the following year, his base salary was cut to a measly $1—but thanks to his other perks, it's clear he wasn't going to exactly starve. According to CNN, Oracle shareholders were displeased with Ellison's self-proposed compensation packages and frequently shot down his requests for two years in a row.

In 2013, Ellison stepped down as CEO and transitioned to the roles of chairman and chief technology officer.

In December 2018, Ellison purchased 3 million shares to join the board of directors at Tesla.

Ellison is the largest shareholder of Oracle, owning more than 40 percent of the company as well as owning 98 percent of Hawaii's Lanai Island.

7. Steve Ballmer: Net Worth $93.9 Billion

Like Gates, Steve Ballmer became rich through Microsoft. After meeting Gates at Harvard, Ballmer worked at Procter & Gamble before leaving to pursue his dream of being a screenwriter. When that didn't pan out, he left his graduate program at Stanford to work with Gates at Microsoft, where he was the first manager that Gates personally hired—and the company's 30th employee overall. In addition to a $50,000 salary, he also retained 8% stock in the company, later selling half of his shares (to the tune of a cool $955 million) and retaining 4%. He was named President of Microsoft in 1998 and took over as CEO from Gates in 2000—when Microsoft was in the midst of an anti-trust lawsuit from the SEC.

While Microsoft saw huge profits under Ballmer's leadership, their stock price plateaued and the company was considered behind the times in terms of tablet computing, smartphone, or music player development, leading many to criticize his work as CEO, with some calling for him to step down. In 2013, Ballmer announced his imminent retirement, and in 2014, Satya Nadella succeeded him as CEO.

8. Larry Page: Net Worth $89.3 Billion

If you've ever said, "Hold on, let me Google it," you can thank this multi-billionaire.

Google co-founder Larry Page was pretty much predestined for programming greatness as the son of two computer programmers. During his PhD. program at Stanford University, Page pioneered search engine technology as we know it today with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, developing "BackRub," a precursor to the PageRank system they developed for Google. From there, they developed "Googol" in 1998 (before eventually changing the name to its current easier spelling). From there, Google expanded its reach to include Android, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Nest, and just about everything else you can imagine. He resigned from his role of Alphabet CEO (Google's parent company) in December 2019, but remains a major investor as well as a board member of the company.

9. Sergey Brin: Net Worth $85.5 Billion

Page's partner in founding Google, Sergey Brin immigrated to the United States from Russia when he was six years old. He met Page at Stanford and helped him create BackRub, the precursor to Google, as well as PageRank. Brin was President of Google until stepping down in December 2019, but like Page, remains on the Alphabet board and a major shareholder.

Page and Brin have also reportedly been in talks with Google regarding the company's AI strategy in 2023.

10. Carlos Slim: Net Worth $81.6 Billion

Carlos Slim, born Carlos Slim Helú, began investing at just 11 years old, similar to Buffett. He learned the ins and outs of the business from his father at a young age and worked for his father's business as a teen. He studied linear programming, which uses mathematical models to predict best possible results and outcomes, which he credits with much of his success as a stock trader after college, and he started a brokerage firm in 1965. That same year, he purchased the Jarritos del Sur beverage company, which has been a lucrative venture for him ever since.

Slim expanded his holdings to include everything from airlines, auto parts, construction, financial services, hotels, metals, mining, minerals, real estate, retail, telecommunications, and tobacco snatching up a lot of struggling Mexican businesses in the 1980s at lower valuations, plus shares in the companies like Hershey (specifically their Mexican arm), Denny's, and Firestone Tires. When Mexico privatized its telecommunications industry in the 1990s, his net worth soared thanks to his investments in Telmex, which operated a majority portion of Mexico's landlines; Telcel, Slim's cellphone company, operated 80% of cellphones in Mexico. He now owns and operates several telecommunications companies in countries around the world.

In the 2000s, Slim began taking on business ventures in the United States, with stakes in Barnes & Noble, since-shuttered competitor Borders, Circuit City, Office Depot and Office Max, as well as getting a stake in Tracfone. Slim also sold his stake in Mexican tobacco company Cigatam to Phillip Morris for a cool $1.1 billion. In 2015, he became the majority shareholder for The New York Times. He also owns two soccer teams (and makes big bucks on the television rights to their games), as well as an oil and gas company and numerous other ventures.

Slim prides himself on philanthropy but has faced criticism worldwide for alleged monopolism, especially in a country so heavily stricken by poverty.

11. Françoise Bettencourt Meyers: Net Worth $81.1 Billion

Françoise Bettencourt Meyers is the richest woman in the world thanks to inheriting a ton of wealth from prior generations of her family: Her grandfather founded the cosmetics giant L'Oréal, of which she acts as chairwoman. Bettencourt Meyers and her family retain a one-third stake in L'Oréal.

Bettencourt Meyers was embroiled in years of litigation after her mother, Liliane Bettencourt, made French writer and photographer François-Marie Banier her sole heir after two hospitalizations, save for the family's L'Oréal shares, which would go to her daughter and grandchildren. Bettencourt Meyers accused Banier of exploiting Bettencourt (think elder abuse laws in the United States), and he was eventually written out of Bettencourt's will. The family and Banier eventually settled out of court, and Bettencourt Meyers remained in control of their mother's estate until her death in 2017.

12. Mukesh Ambani: Net Worth $81.0 Billion

Mukesh Ambani is the richest person in Asia thanks to Reliance, a company he helped his father get off the ground. Reliance began as a textiles company but expanded into other lucrative industries including petrochemicals, rubber, e-commerce, and telecommunications. In January 2022, it was reported that Ambani planned on investing $80 billion into green energy initiatives in ongoing efforts to reduce the company's dependence on oil.

13 and 14. Charles Koch, Julia Flesher Koch & Family: Net Worth $68.2 Billion

Charles Koch is the CEO of Koch Industries, an oil company and the second-largest privately held company in the United States. Koch Industries started as a family business that the younger Koch took over from his father, Fred Koch, in 1967.

In 1980, two of Koch's brothers, Bill and Frederick, unsuccessfully tried to take over control of the business from him, which eventually resulted in a 15-year-long legal battle.

A fourth brother, David, died in 2019, leaving his widow, Julia Flesher Koch, a large stake in the company.

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15. Zhong Shanshan: Net Worth $67.9 Billion

Zhong Shanshan flies largely under the radar, but his bank account doesn't: The founder of Nongfu Spring (a beverage company) is China's richest person. Shanshan founded Nongfu Spring bottled water in 1996, when distilled water was the biggest seller in China. Nongfu Spring advertised that the brand leaves minerals in the water, espousing health benefits from doing so (though those benefits may be pretty dubious). Shanshan's wealth grew exponentially when the company went public in September 2020, CNN reported. In the same month, he had a 75% stake in Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy—which went public in April 2020, the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. You can imagine just how lucrative that was for him!

16. Mark Zuckerberg: Net Worth $66.1 Billion

Mark Zuckerberg, the beleaguered founder of Facebook, is worth an estimated $66.1 billion.

Zuckerberg developed a love for programming at a young age, and his early version of Facebook, while he was still a student at Harvard in 2002, was actually a shallow endeavor: His former roommate revealed to Haaretz, "We had books called Face Books, which included the names and pictures of everyone who lived in the student dorms. At first, he built a site and placed two pictures or pictures of two males and two females. Visitors to the site had to choose who was 'hotter' and according to the votes there would be a ranking." The site was taken down quickly after complaints from students and staff alike, but the idea for the social network was born.

Two years later, he tinkered with a new website, TheFacebook.com, leading other Harvard students, including Divya Narendra and twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, to accuse him of stealing their work and ideas that they'd developed for a site called HarvardConnection.com and using them to create his own site, which directly competed with their project. Narendra and the Winklevoss twins took their complaints to the college newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. In perhaps a moment of eerie foreshadowing, Zuckerberg allegedly hacked into Crimson editors' emails using data they'd provided to TheFacebook.com. Narendra and the Winklevoss twins sued Zuckerberg and eventually settled for 1.2 million Facebook shares.

By February 2004, Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard and launched Facebook, expanding its reach from just Harvard to other colleges and eventually making it open to everyone everywhere. Since then, Zuckerberg, who boasts of taking a salary of just $1, and wife Priscilla Chan have pledged to donate 99% of their Facebook shares over time.

Zuckerberg and Facebook have come under fire for numerous aspects of Facebook's business. These include (but are not limited to) alleged psychological damage from social media, invasions of privacy, international tax avoidance (not to be confused with tax evasion, which is a crime), selling of user data; and vaccine misinformation, hate speech and fake news.

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17, 18, and 19: Jim, Rob, and Alice Walton: Net Worth About $62.9-$65.4 Billion Each

Jim Walton, Rob Walton and Alice Walton are heirs to the Walton Walmart fortune. Jim Walton serves as chairman of his family's Arvest Bank, as well as of Community Publishers. Rob Walton started out as an attorney that represented Walmart, later becoming senior vice president, then vice-chairman of the retail giant. Alice Walton worked in finance, eventually leading investments at the Walton family's Arvest Bank. Alice then founded her own Llama Company investment bank, which helped fund the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. Upon closing the Llama Company in the late 1990s, she focused on the museum she opened, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, in the Walton hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas.

Related: How Space Jam Star LeBron James Became a Basketball-Playing Billionaire

20. Amancio Ortega: Net Worth $63.5 Billion

Amancio Ortega is the founder of Zara, and the brand has made him a lot of money through the years. He and his wife opened the first Zara store in 1975, eventually expanding to create the Inditex Fashion Group, an umbrella company of 6,000 stores and fashion brands. Ortega had a 59.29% stake in Inditex when serving as chairman and retired a very wealthy man in 2011. His real estate portfolio alone is worth $17.2 billion.

Ortega has been lauded for his philanthropy, donating $335 million to fight cancer throughout Spain and another $22 million to Caritas Internationalis, though that's still a quite small fraction of his overall wealth.

Next, find out how Rihanna became a billionaire.

*Net worth estimates change daily, so these estimates represent information that was accurate at press time.