The last year has been a difficult one for most of the Earth's 8.3 billion people, with war, instability, and inflation making life harder for most. But for a small group of the world's wealthiest individuals, times have never been better.
Many of the mega-rich have seen their vast fortunes balloon in 2025, with the global billionaire class of just over 3,000 people seeing their total wealth increase by $3.6 trillion to $18.7 trillion since the start of the year, according to Forbes.
Much of this growth has been generated by booming investment in technology and artificial intelligence stocks, but ten billionaires have been more fortunate than others with their collective net worths increasing by $729 billion in just 12 months.
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One individual has seen their wealth rise by a mind-boggling amount, according to analysis by Forbes, with their astonishing net worth increasing by more than the total wealth of the second richest person on the planet.
These are the ten people who have seen their wealth increase the most in 2025...
10. Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg remains one of the richest men in the world, but saw a slightly smaller boom in his personal fortune than others, with his reported net worth increasing by $24.3 billion thanks to his company's increased revenue and AI investment.
9. Carlos Slim Helú
The owner of Latin American telecoms giant América Móvil, 85-year-old Carlos Slim Helú, has had an incredible year. In just 12 months, the Mexican billionaire has seen his net worth leap by around 25 percent.
Like Zuckerberg, Slim's fortune has reportedly increased by $24.3 billion in 2025, jumping to $101.6 billion after expanding his business and signing huge deals in the construction sector.
8. Masayoshi Son
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Masayoshi Son created and built one of the world's largest tech investment firms, Japan's SoftBank Group, which has poured money into AI and data centre projects in the last year around the world and seen its value boom.
With the major acquisition of an AI-focused chip firm for $6.5 billion and a large investment in the US' future data centre infrastructure, 68-year-old Son's personal wealth has seen a rapid rise - almost doubling to $56.1 billion after jumping $25.4 billion in 2025, according to Forbes.
7. Germán Larrea Mota Velasco & family
Instability and other supply issues in the global metals market have caused the wealth of Mexican mining magnate Germán Larrea to double, reportedly increasing by $25.6 billion to $51.4 billion after the price of copper hit an all-time high in 2025.
The 72-year-old's company, Grupo México, also saw its share price nearly double after large increases in its production of molybdenum, zinc, and silver - materials key to global supply chains.
6. Amancio Ortega
The only European billionaire to win really big this year was Amancio Ortega, whose fashion chain Zara has pulled in record profits of $5.4 billion and seen a massive expansion into the US market with 30 entirely new or renovated stores.
With business booming, Ortega, 89, has raked in $3 billion in dividends alone and seen his estimated wealth jump by $28.7 billion to $145.2 billion
5. Larry Ellison
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2025 has been a year of big moves for Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, 81, whose political connections saw him handed partial control over the US operations of TikTok and given approval for the entertainment industry-changing $8 billion merger between Paramount and his son's Skydance Media.
In addition to this consolidation, Ellison also saw the biggest single-day increase that anyone has ever seen to their net worth, after Oracle's shares jumped 36 percent amid the AI boom.
Ellison is now reportedly worth $250.3 billion, after jumping $40.6 billion this year.
4. Jensen Huang
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One of the biggest winners of this year's AI and tech boom has been graphics card manufacturer Nvidia, which saw its company value increase to a record-breaking $5 trillion - making it the most valuable company to have ever existed.
Cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang, 62, who owns a three percent stake in the firm, saw his estimated wealth jump by $42.3 billion to $159.5 billion as investors everywhere looked to cash-in on the AI gold rush.
3. Sergey Brin
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52-year-old Sergey Brin, who co-founded Google with Larry Page, is one of the richest people in the world and the AI hype train has also seen his wealth balloon, with the search engine's parent company Alphabet Inc. becoming a major player in the developing sector.
This has seen the two men at the top of the company, Brin and Page, become even richer as their business saw record profits of $100 billion in just one quarter. With share prices skyrocketing, Brin is now said to be worth $235.1 billion, an increase of $86.1 billion in 2025.
2. Larry Page
Larry Page, 52, is marginally richer than his fellow Google co-founder with whom he has a combined six percent stake in the company, with a reported net worth of $254.7 billion after a bumper year at his tech firm.
Part of the company's success has been the rollout of its new AI model, Gemini 3, the main competitor to industry-leader OpenAI's ChatGPT. With the US Department of Defence agreeing to use Gemini for its internal AI, Page's wealth is now $98.7 billion larger than when the year began.
1. Elon Musk
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Far and away the biggest winner of capitalism in 2025 has been Tesla and SpaceX CEO and X owner Elon Musk, who started the year as Donald Trump's unlikely and controversial fixer. But despite sparking public anger, his wealth has reportedly increased by a mind-bending amount - $333.2 billion.
This has been the billionaire's best year yet, as Musk has seen his rocket business double in value to $800 billion and been handed a $1 trillion stock pay package by Tesla's shareholders, should he meet certain performance metrics, after company stocks jumped 22 percent in one year.
Last Friday, a judge agreed that the world's richest man can keep this massive payout after a previous court denied it, seeing his total net worth leap to an incredible $754 billion.
With Forbes forecasting an eye-watering valuation of $230 billion for the tech tycoon's merged artificial intelligence and social media company xAI next year, 2026 might be even better - as Musk looks set to become the world's first trillionaire.
Topics: Money, Business, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg
William Morgan