Business magazine Forbes again ranked Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk as the world’s richest man in its monthly top-10 richest people in the world with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos coming in second place, followed closely by luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault.
The South African-born, the American, and the Frenchman have been populating the top three consistently since 2021 when Musk rocketed into the number two spot when he saw his wealth increase by $126 billion in a single year due to Tesla shares climbing a staggering 705 percent.
For September, Musk, 53, was worth an estimated $243.7 billion, an increase of $3 billion compared to last month, but down $7.6 billion from January.
A drop in Amazon shares saw Bezos’ fortune shrink by $7.8 billion, but the 60-year-old nevertheless maintained his number two position with an estimated wealth of $197 billion.
Frenchman Bernard Arnault, 75, CEO and chairman of luxury goods group LVMH, maintains his position at No. 3, despite a $10.2 billion increase in his fortune to $189.7 billion.
Facebook co-founder and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg was the biggest gainer in the past month. Aged 40, the youngest on the list saw his fortune rise by nearly $14 billion to an estimated $180.5 billion as his company’s shares climbed 9 percent during August.
Zuckerberg’s leap put his fellow New Yorker and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison—at 80, the second oldest on the list—in fifth position, with an estimated fortune of $174.7 billion.
In sixth place comes the oldest on the list, 94-year-old Warren Buffet, the legendary investor who bought his first stock at age 11 and filed his first taxes at age 13.
Buffet’s investing conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway did very well in August, with shares climbing 8.5 percent, increasing his net worth by $11.6 billion to a total of $149.9 billion.
Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates—the richest man in the world for many years since the late 90s—was valued at $137.2 billion. The 68-year-old’s investment portfolio increased by $6.3 billion in August, placing him at No. 7.
Larry Page, who, with Sergey Brin, co-founded the Google search engine in 1998, ranked 8th with a net worth valued at $136.1 billion. The 51-year-old is a controlling shareholder of Google’s Alphabet parent company. A five percent decline in the company’s shares cost him $6.1 billion in August.
Brin, also 51, is a controlling shareholder of Alphabet and lost $5.7 billion in August. His net worth is now estimated at $130.4 billion.
Capping off the list at No. 10 is 68-year-old Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, a former classmate of Gates at Harvard University, who in 2000 became Microsoft’s CEO, a position he held for 14 years. A slight dip in Microsoft shares cost him $1.5 billion, leaving his estimated fortune at $122.5 billion.