AI rally lifts America’s top tech fortunes to nearly $2.5 trillion

America’s richest technology billionaires increased their combined net worth by more than $550 billion this year, buoyed by a powerful investor rally centred on leading artificial intelligence companies.

According to Bloomberg data, the ten wealthiest US tech founders and chief executives collectively held almost $2.5 trillion in cash, equity, and other assets by the close of trading in New York on Christmas Eve. That figure marks a sharp rise from about $1.9 trillion at the start of the year and coincides with a gain of more than 18 per cent in the S&P 500 index.

Silicon Valley’s top figures have been major beneficiaries of the hundreds of billions of dollars being poured worldwide into AI chips, data centres, and related products. Some of those gains have been pared back in recent months amid growing concerns that the sector may be experiencing an AI-driven investment bubble.

“This is all speculative and correlated to the success of AI,” said Jason Furman, a Harvard University economics professor and a consultant to the start-up OpenAI. He noted that while there are significant uncertainties about whether the investments will ultimately pay off, investors are currently wagering that they will.

Elon Musk remains the wealthiest individual on the list, with his net worth rising by nearly 50 per cent this year to $645 billion. He briefly lost the top spot in September, when Oracle founder Larry Ellison overtook him, but quickly reclaimed it. Musk’s wealth surged during a year in which he secured a $1 trillion pay package approved by Tesla shareholders and saw the valuation of his space company, SpaceX, climb to $800 billion.

Another prominent beneficiary of the AI boom is Jensen Huang, the founder of AI chipmaker Nvidia. The company has rapidly grown into the world’s largest listed firm, with a market capitalisation exceeding $4 trillion. Huang ranks as the eighth-richest US tech executive, with a net worth of $156 billion. Securities filings show that he sold more than $1 billion worth of Nvidia shares during the year, capitalising on the company’s ascent as the dominant producer of advanced AI chips.

Other tech leaders also trimmed their holdings. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sold $5.6 billion worth of shares this year, while Michael Dell disposed of more than $2 billion in stock of his namesake technology company.

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg slipped down the rankings following a recent decline in the company’s share price, as investors became increasingly cautious about Meta’s heavy spending on AI infrastructure and lucrative compensation packages for leading AI researchers.

Larry Ellison’s wealth surged after Oracle announced a $300 billion data centre deal with OpenAI three months ago. However, concerns over how Oracle is financing its aggressive data centre expansion have weighed on the company’s stock, which has fallen about 40 per cent from its September peak.

Both Zuckerberg and Ellison were overtaken by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Page’s net worth increased by $270 billion, while Brin’s rose by $255 billion, reflecting investor confidence as Google advances its in-house AI models and custom-designed chips.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was the only person among the group to end the year with a lower net worth than he had at the beginning. 

By Tamilla Hasanova