How I Made $5000 in the Stock Market

Elon Musk Still Tops World’s Richest. This Billionaire Is Hot on His Heels.

Oct 02, 2025 16:24:00 -0400 by Abby Schultz | #Wealth

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Key Points

The first nine months of the year have certainly been tumultuous, shaped by President Donald Trump returning to office, Elon Musk’s remaking of federal agencies as he led the Department of Government Efficiency, and rapid developments in artificial intelligence.

It’s no surprise, then, that reverberations from these national and global events—including erratic tariff policies and ongoing conflicts in Israel and Ukraine—have reshaped the fortunes of the world’s top billionaires.

Through Sept. 30, Musk, CEO of Tesla , remains securely on the top of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a gain of nearly $27 billion in net worth to $459 billion. His fortunes track gains in shares of Tesla, which rose to $459.46 as of the market close on Wednesday, which was the highest level for the electric-vehicle maker’s stock since the stock closed on $462.28 on Dec. 24.

Musk’s status as the world’s No. 1 billionaire was briefly overtaken by Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison on the morning of Sept. 10 as his net worth hit about $405 billion on a more than 30% surge in Oracle’s shares. The increase, fueled by an unexpectedly strong earnings report, meant Ellison—Oracle’s largest shareholder—was worth more than Musk, with a fortune of $390 billion at the time.

By the end of that trading day, however, Musk was back on top with a $384 billion fortune compared with $383 billion for Ellison, according to Bloomberg. Still, by Sept. 30, Ellison remained the second wealthiest billionaire in the world with a net worth of $340 billion, a huge $148 billion gain for the year—by far the largest among the world’s wealthiest.

Of course, much of the wealth of these world’s billionaires isn’t easily accessible as cash, and fluctuates constantly. Also, determining the exact value of their fortunes isn’t an exact science, as it relies on publicly available information, which can be difficult to nail down for stakes in privately held companies.

Though Musk’s fortune is tied to Tesla, for instance, he is also the CEO of privately held SpaceX and owns xAI, an AI and social media company.

As Barron’s reported on Sept. 10, the rise of Oracle —an enterprise software and cloud-computing company—is based on its increasing role as a neutral provider of AI infrastructure. Oracle’s databases run on the clouds of competitors, including Microsoft and Amazon.com .

As a result, Ellison’s fortunes are growing far faster than those of Meta Platforms founder Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had been in second and third place on Bloomberg’s list at the start of the year with fortunes of $239 billion and $207 billion, respectively.

Meta Platform’s shares are up about 23% for the year on the strength of developments in AI and advertising, while Amazon’s shares are up only about 1.2%. Some of the company’s investors are concerned about lost market share in Amazon’s dominant cloud-computing business, Amazon Web Services, and its plans to make about $100 million in capital expenditures on AI and AWS infrastructure.

As a result, Zuckerberg—who holds 13% of Meta shares—overtook Bezos—with 8.6% shares of Amazon—by the end of the first half of the year, according to Bloomberg. Zuckerberg continued to hold his No. 3 spot behind Ellison by the end of the third quarter with a fortune of $258 billion. Bezos slipped from No. 2 at the start of the year to No. 4 with a fortune of $243 billion.

Despite all the changes among the top ranks, only Bernard Arnault, CEO of the luxury-goods maker LVMH, and Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, saw their fortunes slip through the end of the third quarter.

Arnault moved from a No. 5 rank at the start of the year to No. 8 among the top 10 billionaires as his wealth dropped by nearly $5 billion to $172 billion. Arnault owns 48% of Paris-based LVMH, which has suffered from a slide in sales of luxury fashion and leather goods. The company’s shares were down about 6% for the year through Sept. 30.

The dip in Gates’ fortune—to $122 billion from $159 billion at the start of the year—was purposeful, as the well-known philanthropist announced in May he would be giving away $200 billion of his current and future wealth over the next 20 years. That decision plunges Gates from No. 9 to No. 15 on Bloomberg’s list.

Write to Abby Schultz at abby.schultz@barrons.com