Who will earn the most money among the world's richest people in 2023?

Elon Musk's net worth has increased by about $100 billion in 2023, and tech tycoons such as Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Larry Ellison, and Jensen Huang have also benefited the most with the help of the AI boom.

Original title: "The 10 Billionaires Who Grow the Most in Wealth in 2023"

文 | Chase Peterson-Withorn

For many of the ultra-rich, 2023 is a year of ever more and more bulging wallets. With the rise of the global stock market, more than half of the world's 2,568 billionaires are richer than they were on New Year's Day, and many have increased their wealth by tens or tens of billions of dollars, and there is even a lucky "Mr. X" whose wealth has risen by more than $100 billion.

Of course, there are always some billionaires who are luckier than others. According to Forbes, as of December 15, 2023, the net worth of the top 10 richest people who have increased their wealth this year has increased by a total of $490 billion.

Seven of those 10 are tech tycoons. If 2022 was the year of liquidation for big tech stocks, 2023 was the year of the rally, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite up 42%, nearly double the S&P 500's 23% gain. The "Big Seven" – Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla and Meta – have all outperformed the market by a wide margin, helping to double the value of the billionaires behind them.

In terms of net worth, none has seen the most increase in wealth this year than Elon Musk (Forbes lists him as an auto billionaire because he derives most of his wealth from automaker Tesla). At the beginning of 2023, Musk also ranked second on the list of the world's richest people with a net worth of $146.5 billion, as he lost more money than anyone else in 2022, but by the end of the year, he had returned to the top of the list, as his net worth increased by more than $108 billion with the significant recovery in Tesla's stock price.

Only two of the top 10 billionaires with the biggest wealth growth this year are from outside the United States: Indonesian petrochemical and energy tycoon Prajogo Pangestu (in percentage terms, he is the richest person to increase his net worth this year, up more than 900 percent), and Amancio Ortega, the Spanish tycoon behind fashion retailer Zara.

Here are the top 10 billionaires with the most wealth growth in 2023 (statistics as of December 15, 2023):

埃隆•马斯克(Elon Musk)

Sources of wealth: Tesla, SpaceX

Current net worth: $254.9 billion (+$108.4 billion)

图片来源：CHESNOT/GETTY IMAGES

In his first year at the helm of Twitter (which he renamed X in July), Musk has made his social media platform a melting pot with controversial tweets, but over the past 12 months, Musk has still increased his wealth more than anyone else in the world, thanks mainly to his other two ventures: electric car maker Tesla's stock price has risen 100% this year Deliveries of the Cybertruck, an electric truck, began last month, and rocket company SpaceX, which has also made more than 90 successful launches this year, soared to a valuation of $150 billion in July, and is now said to be selling shares at a valuation of $180 billion.

马克•扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）

财富来源: Facebook

Current net worth: $118.6 billion (+$74.8 billion)

图片来源：CHESNOT/GETTY IMAGES

After a particularly difficult 2022 — stock price crashes, plummeting profits, and massive layoffs in the fourth quarter — Zuckerberg made a comeback, growing his wealth by about $75 billion this year, leaving shareholders cheering his "productive year." Shares of Facebook's parent company, Meta, are up 178% this year as of Dec. 15 and are on track for its best year ever.

杰夫·贝索斯(Jeff Bezos)

Source of wealth: Amazon

Current net worth: $172.3 billion (+$65 billion)

图片来源：LIONEL HAHN/GETTY IMAGES

This year, Bezos donated $700 million worth of stock, mostly to address homelessness and climate change, and pledged $100 million to fund wildfire relief on Maui, where he also has a home. Such a large donation is nothing for Bezos, as Amazon's stock is up 79% in 2023, giving Bezos 65 billion new reasons to celebrate. In addition, the former richest man owned a new superyacht this year and completed his engagement to former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez.

彭云鹏(Prajogo Pangestu)

Source of wealth: diversification

Current net worth: $52.8 billion (+$47.9 billion)

图片来源：AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The Indonesian tycoon has amassed a lot of wealth in the timber and petrochemical industries. In March, he led one of his coal mining companies to go public, and in October, he listed a renewable energy company that owns Indonesia's largest geothermal producer, and in October, the company's share price has risen by more than 200 percent.

拉里•佩奇（Larry Page）

Source of wealth: Google

Current net worth: $111.7 billion (+$34.4 billion)

图片来源：TIM MOSENFELDER/GETTY IMAGES

Shares of Google's parent company Alphabet are up 50% this year as investors look forward to the tech giant's Gemini AI software, which is ready to launch in 2024. Alphabet was co-founded in 1998 by Page and Sergey Brin, and launched its AI chatbot Bard in March this year.

阿曼西奥•奥特加(Amancio Ortega)

Source of wealth: Zara

Current net worth: $97.4 billion (+$33.2 billion)

图片来源：FOTOPRESS/GETTY IMAGES

The Madrid-listed Inditex company, the Spanish fast-fashion pioneer, is known for its Zara brand, and its shares are up 57% to an all-time high in 2023, driven by strong demand and record profits. This is undoubtedly good news for Ortega, who owns about 60% of the company's shares and serves on the company's board of directors alongside his daughter, Marta Ortega Perez, who has been non-executive chairman since 2022.

谢尔盖•布林（Sergey Brin）

Source of wealth: Google

Current net worth: $107.3 billion (+$33 billion)

图片来源：C FLANIGAN/GETTY IMAGES

Brin withdrew from Google's day-to-day operations in 2019 with Page, but returned to the company in 2023 after a lapse of years to devote himself to the company's AI research and development in one of its most hands-on roles.

史蒂夫•鲍尔默（Steve Ballmer）

Source of wealth: Microsoft

Current net worth: $110.9 billion (+$32.4 billion)

图片来源：STEVEN FERDMAN/GETTY IMAGES

It's been a good year for two of Ballmer's major investments — the N.B.A.'s Los Angeles Clippers and Microsoft — with the former up 19 percent in market value from a year ago and the latter's stock up 55 percent (Ballmer served as Microsoft's chief executive from 2000 to 2014 and remains the majority shareholder in the company), thanks in large part to Microsoft's interest in Chat GPT developers OpenAI's generous $10 billion investment.

拉里·埃里森（Larry Ellison）

Source of wealth: Oracle

Current net worth: $133.2 billion (+$30.8 billion)

图片来源：DAVID LIVINGSTON/GETTY IMAGES

Shares of software giant Oracle are up 26% this year, driven by demand for data center services driven by generative AI. That has boosted Ellison's net worth by more than $30 billion, even after the recent sell-off.

黄仁勋(Jensen Huang)

Source of wealth: Nvidia

Current net worth: $43.6 billion (+$29.8 billion)

图片来源：MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES

No one exemplifies the AI boom better than Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, which has designed more AI system-on-chips than any other company. The company's shares soared more than 230% in 2023, giving Nvidia a market capitalization of $1.2 trillion and making Jensen Huang, who was born in Taiwan and wears the Nvidia trademark on his arm, one of the 20 richest people in the United States.

This article is translated from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2023/12/19/the-10-billionaires-who-gained-the-most-wealth-in-2023/?sh=c0c172973750

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