Larry Page has risen to second place among the world’s wealthiest people for the first time, overtaking Oracle’s Larry Ellison to become the world’s second-richest person. The Google co-founder had an estimated net worth of 262 billion dollars as of December 1, according to Forbes, up about 30 billion in a month on the back of gains at Alphabet, Google’s parent company.
The jump was driven by a surge in Alphabet’s share price tied to its advances in artificial intelligence, part of a broader run in which technology fortunes have dominated the upper reaches of the rankings. Page, 52, has long kept a low profile, skipping high-profile events and making no major public speeches for years, unlike peers such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. He has also stepped back from Alphabet’s day-to-day operations to fund futuristic ventures, from flying taxis to other secretive projects.
At the top of the list, Elon Musk remains the world’s richest person with a fortune of 483 billion dollars, a position he has held since May 2024. That is despite a roughly 15 billion dollar dip tied to Tesla’s ambitious pay package and the valuation of his AI venture xAI. Ellison, the Oracle chairman, sits close behind Page at more than 253 billion dollars, buoyed by his company’s gains in cloud software and AI infrastructure.
The rest of the top tier reads as a roll-call of technology wealth. Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang and Michael Dell all feature prominently, alongside France’s Bernard Arnault of the luxury group LVMH and Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway. Every member of the top 10 is a man, and each is worth at least 152 billion dollars.
As a group, the ten richest people were worth a combined 2.4 trillion dollars. The figures shift daily with the markets, and the rankings have seen notable churn: Bill Gates, long a fixture near the top, dropped out of the top 10 in late 2024 after Forbes revised its estimate of his fortune downward.
