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.
9. Larry Page
Larry Page co-founded Google in 1998 and now has a net worth of $117.2bn. The 50-year-old lives in Palo Alto in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley and remains on the board of Google’s parent company Alphabet Picture: niallkennedy (Flickr) | niallkennedy (Flickr) Photo: niallkennedy (Flickr)
10. Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin is ranked the ninth richest man in the world with a net worth of $112.4bn, just behind his Google co-founder Larry Page. The 50-year-old stepped down as president of Alphabet, parent company of Google, in December 2019 but remains a controlling shareholder. Photo: James Duncan Davidson
11. Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer is worth £112.2bn thanks to his role at Microsoft, where was CEO from 2000 to 2014. Now 67, when he retired from Microsoft he purchased the Los Angeles Clippers team for $2bn - a record high for a basketball team at the time - but Forbes now values the team at $4.65bn. Photo: the-cbi on Flickr