- The wealth of the world's richest people has been swelling since 2016.
- The combined personal wealth of the top 10 individuals was less than $600 billion 10 years ago, but now it stands at $2.6 trillion.
- Philanthropist Bill Gates, who was ranked first, and Warren Buffett, who was ranked third, both dropped to 17th and 10th place, respectively.
A lot has changed since 2016. It was the year that Stranger Things premiered on Netflix, Leonardo DiCaprio finally won an Academy Award, and the year that the Pokémon GO craze led players to break into zoos and military bases to catch virtual creatures.
As millennials reminisce about 2016 online, Business Insider examined how the world's wealthiest people have spent the past decade. A striking trend is that the wealthy are getting even richer.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index , the combined net worth of the world's top 10 richest people at the end of 2015 was $559 billion. That figure has now nearly quintupled to $2.6 trillion, with Elon Musk alone holding $682 billion (as of the close of trading on January 15th).
There haven't been any major changes at the top of the list of the wealthiest people. The top 10 in 2016 were Bill Gates, Amancio Ortega, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Carlos Slim, Charles Koch, David Koch, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Larry Ellison.
With the exception of the late David Koch, all of them are currently in the top 25 of the rich list. David Koch's wife, Julia Flesher Koch, and their family are ranked 22nd in his place.
Musk is the most notable newcomer. As CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, he has become the wealthiest person in the world today. Page and Sergey Brin, who co-founded Alphabet with him, are second and third, respectively, with their net worths exceeding $250 billion.
Amazon founder and chairman Jeff Bezos once again ranked fourth with a net worth of $260 billion. He was followed by Oracle co-founder John Ellison and Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, with net worths of $242 billion and $220 billion respectively.
The current top 10 richest people include LVMH founder Bernard Arnault, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang. Their net worth ranges from $148 billion to $200 billion.
The actions of influential figures
Inditex founder Ortega's net worth nearly doubled from $73 billion to $133 billion in the past decade, but he dropped from second to 15th place due to the rapid increase in tech-related wealth in recent years.
Similarly, telecommunications mogul Carlos Slim dropped from 5th to 16th place, and businessman Charles Koch fell from 6th to 24th.
Bill Gates, who topped the list of the world's richest people 10 years ago, has dropped to 17th place due to his charitable donations. According to the Gates Foundation's website, he and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, have donated more than $60 billion to the foundation by the end of 2024. In May 2025, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates estimated his net worth at $108 billion and pledged to donate 99% of it by 2045.
Buffett made a similar move, dropping from third to tenth place after donating more than half of his Berkshire Hathaway shares. The investor Buffett said in November 2025 that he wants to distribute all of his wealth to his three children, who are in their sixties and seventies, while they are still healthy.
The most striking difference between the current list of the richest people and the list from 10 years ago is the size of the personal wealth of those on the list. Ten years ago, the net worth of the top 10 ranged from $40 billion to $84 billion, but now it ranges from $148 billion to $682 billion.
In other words, the wealthiest person in the world today is, on paper, eight times wealthier than the wealthiest person ten years ago.
Musk, in particular, has become extremely wealthy due to his large holdings of shares in several of the world's most highly-rated companies.
Taking stock splits into account, Tesla's stock price has increased approximately 27-fold in the past decade, bringing the company's market capitalization to $1.5 trillion. SpaceX surged to $800 billion in December, and xAI reached $230 billion in January.