The richest people in the world in 2000 vs. 2024

If you compare the richest people in the world today with those 25 years ago, it is noticeable that their wealth has grown and most of their names have changed.

Bill Gates topped the Forbes list of the world’s richest people in 2000. The Microsoft co-founder’s net worth has risen from $60 billion (around €57 billion) at the time to $105 billion (around €100 billion) as of press time on Tuesday. That’s enough for 15th place in the real-time rankings.

These were the 20 richest people in 2000

Today as then, the following made it into the top 20: Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, Walmart heir Rob Walton, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and LVMH founder and -CEO Bernard Arnault.

However, to maintain a place in the top 20, it had to gain significant wealth since 2000. Ellison’s net worth, for example, has more than quadrupled from $47 billion (around €45 billion) to $217 billion (around €208 billion).

Not with that too

This billionaire is betting primarily on a single stock

Buffett’s assets have increased more than fivefold from around $26 billion (around €25 billion) to $143 billion (around €137 billion). This is despite the fact that the investor has given away more than half of his Berkshire shares to good causes since 2006.

Walton and Dell’s assets have increased fivefold from around $20 billion (around €19 billion) to well over $100 billion (around €96 billion).

Ballmer and Arnault recorded even larger gains: their net worth rose from $16 and $13 billion (around €12.5 and €15 billion) to $128 and $168 billion (around €123 and €161 billion), respectively.

The losers in the rankings

The founder and CEO of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son, rose from 19 to “only” 30 billion dollars (from around 18 to 28 billion euros), slipping from eighth place to 59th place.

Several other people fell out of the top ten. They include Bill Gates’ late co-founder Paul Allen, brothers Theo and Karl Albrecht, who co-founded supermarket giant Aldi, as well as Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Al Saud of Saudi Arabia and newspaper tycoon Kenneth Thompson.

On the other hand, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang are among the top ten richest People.

While a $20 billion fortune (around 19 billion euros) would have meant a permanent place in the top ten in 2000, a net worth of this size hardly makes it into the top 100 today.

Not with that too

This family is now the richest in the world again – but hardly anyone in Germany knows them

The ten richest people together were worth $275 billion (around €264 billion) in 2000, which corresponds to around a seventh of the total assets of two billion dollars (around €1.9 billion) at the time of going to press on Tuesday. The 20 richest people were worth $406 billion (around €390 billion) at the time, a fraction of the $3 billion (around €2.8 billion) they are worth today.

Musk alone is now worth 454 billion dollars (approx. 436 billion euros), exceeding the total wealth of the 20 richest people in 2000.

The consistency between the two lists shows that companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Berkshire Hathaway, Dell and Walmart have increased in value over the decades, so that their largest shareholders can still be found in the top ten almost a quarter century later.

But it is also clear that companies like Amazon, Alphabet, Tesla, Meta and Nvidia have skyrocketed in value and catapulted their largest backers into the top ten positions.