Richest men in the world 2024: Tesla and Space X's Elon Musk, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg

As we move into 2024, we can expect another year dominated by the tech oligarchy who now make up the most influential people on the planet. 

Elon Musk’s every move and utterance makes headline news, while his continuing rivalry with Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg adds a personal dimension to social media pronouncements - and to rich lists. The American website Forbes tracks the value of the ultra-wealthy - and here’s their running order on the first day of January 2024.

Forbes says: “Billionaires at the top of the Forbes list had a pretty good December - at least in terms of their stockholdings. As of January 1, 2024, seven of the world’s top 10 richest people are wealthier than they were a month ago.  Together the world’s 10 richest people, according to Forbes, are worth $1.47 trillion as of the strike of midnight on January 1 - up from $1.44 trillion a month ago. The two biggest gainers in the past month (in dollar terms) were Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault; each is up $9.4bn compared with December 1 due to increases in the share price of their respective companies.”

Arnault was the world’s richest person at the start of last year, but was overtaken by Musk in June.