Elon Musk has retained the title of world’s richest person for the fourth time in five years, according to the Hurun Global Rich List 2025. Musk recorded a surge of 82 per cent in his wealth that comes to around $189 billion, driven by rise in Tesla shares price post US President Donald Trump’s re-election.
Rupert Hoogewerf, Chairman and Chief Researcher, Hurun Report, said, “Donald Trump’s election win gave US-based billionaires a significant post-election bonus. Close allies Elon Musk and tech investor Peter Thiel saw their wealth surge 82 per cent to $420 billion and 67 per cent to $14 billion. The US President’s following has contributed to Trump’s wealth almost tripling to $7.2 billion.” Interestingly, Musk has become the first individual to surpass the $400 billion threshold.
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However, he maintained that since Hurun’s cut-off of 15 January 2025, Musk has lost $100 billion after Tesla saw its market cap plunge by $700 billion. This is attributed to his political activism, involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and rising competition from Chinese automakers, all of which have affected Tesla’s stock price. “Despite the drop, Musk is still the richest person in the world,” he added.
The Top 10 richest
Hurun released its Global Rich List 2025 on Thursday and the top 10 added $512 billion, 30 per cent of total new wealth, and are worth $2.1trillion or 12 per cent of the total list. The cut-off to make the Hurun Global Rich List Top 10 has almost doubled every five years, from $36 billion ten years ago to $67 billion five years ago and $143 billion this year.
Jeff Bezos, 61, bagged the second position in the list with $266 billion, recording a surge of 44 per cent, driven primarily by a surge in Amazon’s stock price, fuelled by investor optimism over the impact of its cost cutting as well as its AI and cloud services.
Mark Zuckerberg broke into the Top 3 for the first time with a growth of 53 per cent in his wealth at $242 billion. This was driven by investor optimism regarding Meta’s AI and tech infrastructure.
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