• Tesla owner Elon Musk defends his top spot with $638B fortune, followed by Google co-founder Larry Page with $265B, Google's other co-founder Sergey Brin with $247B
  
  
  ISTANBUL 

The combined wealth of the world's 10 richest businesspeople has exceeded $2.5 trillion as of Tuesday, while Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and the owner of Tesla, is the world's richest businessman with $638 billion.

As of Dec. 16, the total wealth of the world's 10 richest businesspeople reached $2.536 trillion, an increase of $558.9 billion since the beginning of the year, according to data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Nine of the world's 10 richest businesspeople are from the US, and one is from France. Eight of the 10 are active in the technology sector.

Musk increased his wealth by $205B

Elon Musk, at the top of the list, increased his wealth by $205 billion since the beginning of the year, reaching $638 billion, and retained his title as the world's richest person. This climb also made him the person with the largest increase in wealth on the list.

Musk, also the owner of artificial intelligence company xAI, is followed by Google co-founder Larry Page with a fortune of $265 billion. Page increased his wealth by $96.8 billion.

In third place is Google co-founder Sergey Brin with $247 billion. Brin increased his wealth by $88.2 billion this year.

He is followed by Jeff Bezos, owner of the US technology and e-commerce company Amazon, with a fortune of $246 billion. Bezos has increased his wealth by $7 billion since the beginning of the year.

Larry Ellison, founder of the US tech giant Oracle, ranked fifth with a fortune of $238 billion. Ellison added $46.1 billion to his wealth since the beginning of the year.

Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta, saw his fortune increase by $21.5 billion to $229 billion.

Bernard Arnault, owner of French clothing brands, also saw his fortune rise by $26.1 billion to $202 billion during the same period.

CEO of world's most valuable company ranks 9th on list

Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft, ranked 8th on the list, with his fortune increasing by $19 billion to $166 billion during the same period.

Ballmer was followed by Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, the world's most valuable company, with a fortune of $153 billion. Huang added $39 billion to his wealth since the beginning of the year.

Despite losing some market value due to recent concerns about "high valuations" in the tech and semiconductor sectors, Nvidia maintains its position as the world's most valuable company, currently with a value of $4.292 trillion.

In the 10th place on the list is Warren Buffett, one of the world's most famous investors. Buffett retained his position with a fortune of $152 billion as of Dec. 16, and it is known that he added another $10.2 billion to his wealth since the beginning of the year.