Elon Musk
South African-born Elon Musk, who later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Economics and Physics, first enrolled in a Canadian university. Two days after he enrolled in the physics doctoral program at Stanford University, Musk postponed his attendance to launch his Zip2, one of his first internet navigation services. . He used some of the startup’s profits to create his X.com, an online payment system.
X.com was eventually purchased by eBay (EBAY) and renamed PayPal. Musk’s role as a major investor in Tesla Motors in 2004 helped him rise to his current position as CEO of the electric car company.
With his Solar City acquisition in 2016, Tesla also makes solar power systems, car accessories, and energy storage systems, in addition to a range of electric vehicles. Additionally, Musk is the creator and CEO of SpaceX, a company that builds rockets for space launches. Musk’s lead on the list of the world’s richest people has been extended by the rise of Tesla stock in 2021 and a secret deal that boosted Space X’s reported value.
He hit a record high of $340 billion. In April 2022, Musk launched his campaign to buy Twitter, resulting in a $44 billion deal. Musk planned to contribute his $21 billion to the deal on his own. Musk sold 9.6 million shares of Tesla for an estimated total of $8.5 billion.
Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com in his Seattle garage. When he first suggested opening an online bookstore, his former employer David E. Shaw showed no interest. Amazon started selling books, since grown into a one-stop-shop for everything and perhaps the world’s largest retailer. The company’s tendency to continually diversify is demonstrated by some of Amazon’s unexpected expansions, including the company’s acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017 and its foray into the pharmaceutical market that same year.
Bezos controlled up to 16% of Amazon till 2020. In 2019, he transferred 4% to ex-wife Mackenzie Scott as part of the divorce proceedings. Bezos first went public with his Amazon in 1997 and became the first person to reach his $100 billion net worth, surpassing Bill Gates in 1999. The Washington Post and aerospace company Blue Origin among his other Bezos businesses (which Bezos acquired in 2013).
On July 20, 2021, Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and Dutch schoolboy Oliver Daemen completed the first manned flight of Blue Origin. They climbed to an altitude of over 66 miles before landing safely. Bezos’ fortune hit $211 billion in the same month
Gautam Adani
Gautam Adani, the under of Adani Group, surpassed Mukesh Ambani to become Asia’s richest person in March 2022. Through Adani Group’s ownership, Adani owns six major holdings including his 75% stake in Adani Enterprises, Adani Power, Adani Transmission, his 65% stake in Adani Port & Special Economic Zone. Adani Green Energy shares and his 37% stake in Adani Total Gas. Adani Group-backend owned companies have a combined market capitalization of $238.4 billion (as of September 6, 2022).
Adani entered the power technology market in 2009 with Adani Power. Adani founded Adani Enterprises in 1988 to import and export goods. In 1994, his company received approval to expand the port facilities of Mundra Port, now India’s largest private port. Adani dropped out of college and worked in the diamond trade. Today, Adani is India’s largest port operator and is closely tied to thermal coal producers and coal traders. In 2020, he acquired his 74% stake in Chhatrapati, Mumbai, the second busiest airport in India.
Bernard Arnault
Frenchman Bernard Arnault is the boss and CEO of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods manufacturer. Louis Vuitton, Hennessy, Marc Jacobs, and Sephora are just a few of the companies owned by LVMH. His sizable stake in Arnault in Christian Dior SE, the holding company that owns 41.2% of him in LVMH, is where most of his wealth comes from.
Through his family’s holding company, Groupe Familial Arnault, he owns his stake in Christian Dior SE and his 6.2% stake in LVMH. Arnault is an engineer by profession, but it was during his tenure there that he first demonstrated his economic acumen before taking over the management of Ferret-Savinel in 1971. Arnaud served as Chairman of Felinell for another six years. In 1984, he bought and rebuilt Financiere Agache, selling all his possessions except Christian Dior and Le Bon Marché. In 1987 he received an invitation to invest in his LVMH. Two years later, he became the company’s largest shareholder and was appointed chairman and CEO.
Bill Gates
Harvard student Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen began developing new software for microcomputers in 1975. Following the success of this project, Gates left Harvard in his freshman year and soon joined Allen at Microsoft. the world’s largest software company, manufactures its personal computers, publishes books through Microsoft Press, provides e-mail service through Exchange servers, and sells gaming systems and related peripherals. Joined Berkshire Hathaway’s board of directors in 2004.
He resigned from all forums on March 13, 2020. Bill Gates keeps most of his net worth in Cascade Investment LLC. Cascade is a private investment firm with diversified stakes in Canadian National Railways (CNR), Deere (DE), and Republic Services (RSG), as well as private investments in real estate and energy. Bill Gates is the largest private farm in the United States with over 268,000 acres.
Larry Page
Like the other rich computer entrepreneurs on our list, Larry Page began his journey to notoriety and fortune in a college dorm room. The concept for enhancing internet data extraction was developed by Page and his friend Sergey Brin in 1995 when they were both freshmen at Stanford University. They developed a revolutionary search engine technique thrilled Backrub that allowed them to evaluate backing connections. From there, Page and Brin founded Google in 1998.
Page led the business as CEO from 1998 to 2001 and then from 2011 to 2019. With more than 92% of all global search requests being handled by Google, it is the most used internet search engine. The business purchased YouTube, the most popular website for user-submitted videos, in 2006. After acquiring Android in 2005, Google debuted the Android mobile operating system in 2008.
In 2015, Google underwent a restructuring that resulted in it joining the holding company Alphabet. He also made investments in Kitty Hawk and Opener, showing his interest in companies that produce flying automobiles. Page and Brin rose to the list of the richest individuals in 2021 thanks to a roughly 50% gain in the value of Google stock. Page’s net worth was just under $52 billion in March 2020; it is now $98.7 billion.
Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett, the best-known living value investor, filed his first tax return in 1944 when he was 14 years old, revealing revenues from his paper route as a young lad. By 1965, he had acquired the bulk of Berkshire Hathaway’s shares after making his initial investment in the textile company in 1962. In 1967, he expanded the business to include insurance and investments.
A single Class A share of the $705 billion firm Berkshire Hathaway traded for more than USD 4 439,000n on August 5, 2022. Buffett, a buy-and-hold investor renowned as the Oracle of Omaha, acquired his wealth by acquiring undervalued businesses.
Berkshire Hathaway has recently made investments in well-known, large corporations. In addition to consumer goods, its portfolio of wholly owned firms also includes investments in the railroad, energy distribution, and insurance industries. The majority of Buffett’s money has been allocated to charitable causes. He donated $41 billion between 2006 and 2020, the majority of which went to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and his kids’ organizations.
Sergey Brin
When Sergey Brin was six years old, his family immigrated to the United States from Moscow, Russia, where he was born. In 1998, Larry Page and Brin co-founded Google, and in 2001, when Eric Schmidt became his CEO, Brin was named president of technology. He remained there when Alphabet Holding was founded in 2015, but left the company in 2019, with Sundar Pichai taking over as CEO.
In addition to being the leading internet search engine, Google offers a variety of online tools and services collectively known as Google Workspace. These include Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Meet, Google Chat, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and more. In addition, Google sells a variety of technology products, including gaming platform Stadia, Nest smart home products, Pixel smartphones, laptops, and tablets.
Alphabet’s research arm that has created groundbreaking products such as Waymo self-driving cars and Google Glass smart glasses. He has also partnered with the Michael J. Fox Foundation to donate millions of dollars to Parkinson’s research.
Larry Ellison
An unmarried 19-year-old mother gave birth to Larry Ellison in New York City. Ellison moved to California and began working as a computer programmer after receiving his degree from the University of Chicago. In 1973, he started working for the electronics company Ampex, where she met Ed Oates and Bob Miner, two future business partners.
Three years later, as vice president of research and development, Ellison started working for Precision Instruments. Software Development Laboratories was formed in 1977 by Oates, Miner, and Ellison. Two years later, the business unveiled Oracle, the first relational database to employ structured query language that was intended for commercial use.
The success of the database program led SDL to rename itself Oracle Systems Corporation in 1982. Ellison’s 37-year run as Oracle’s CEO ended in 2014. In December 2018, he joined the Tesla board of directors. The Oracle Exadata processing platform, together with a several cloud computing apps, Java, and Linux code, are all offered by the second-largest software provider in the world.
Oracle has acquired a several or companies, including BEA Systems, a provider of enterprise infrastructure software, in 2008; Siebel, a provider of customer relationship management software; and Sun Microsystems, a producer of hardware and software, in 2005. In December 2021, Oracle and Cerner (CERN) agreed that Oracle will buy Cerner for $28.3 billion in cash.
In the past ten years, Ellison, who has a history of extravagant spending, has made large real estate purchases. The wealthy has lived on the Hawaiian island of Lanai since 2020, where he reportedly spent $300 million buying nearly the entire island in 2012. Ellison has built an opulent spa and a hydroponic garden on the island. Ellison’s philanthropy is focused on funding medical research. He gave the University of Southern California $200 million in 2016 to construct a brand-new cancer research facility.
Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 after being persuaded by Bill Gates to drop out as an MBA programmer at Stanford University. He was his 31st employee at Microsoft. Ballmer succeeded Gates as head of Microsoft in 2000. He held this position until he retired in 2014.
In 2011, Ballmer oversaw his $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype by Microsoft. With an estimated 4% stake in Microsoft, Ballmer is Microsoft’s largest single shareholder. His basketball franchise with the Los Angeles Clippers was acquired by Ballmer for $2 billion in 2014, just months after he stepped down as his CEO at Microsoft. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer shared a room and dorm when they were undergraduates at Harvard University.
The close brotherhood became strained during Ballmer’s tenure as CEO when he began pushing tech giants into hardware like Surface tablets and Windows Phones.
