World's richest 500 gained record $2.2 trillion in 2025, led by eight billionaires

The 500 wealthiest people globally gained a record $2.2 trillion in 2025, a sum Oxfam noted could lift billions out of poverty, driven by market booms.

Limerick brothers and Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison have a net worth of €8bn each according to Bloomberg.

The richest 500 individuals in the world added a record $2.2tn (€1.9tn) to their wealth in 2025, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with just eight billionaires accounting for a quarter of the gains.

The gains increased their collective net worth to $11.9tn (€10.1tn), bolstered by billionaire Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory and booming markets in cryptocurrencies, equities and metals.

Around a quarter of the gains were attributed to eight billionaires, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Oracle chair Larry Ellison and Alphabet Inc co-founder Larry Page, though 2024 saw more concentrated net worth gains with the same eight billionaires making up 43% of total net worth gains for the wealthiest 500 individuals in the world.

Elon Musk’s net worth soared by $190.3bn, to $622.7bn. Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart saw her net worth nearly triple from $12.6bn to $37.7bn through her rare-earth metals portfolio.

Ellison saw a net worth gain in 2025 of $57.7bn, bringing his total net worth to $249.8bn. The 81-year-old Oracle Corp. co-founder and chairman has been omnipresent — playing a role in just about every major business story of the year, from the frenzied artificial intelligence boom (or bubble) to the megadeals that are roiling Hollywood. Oracle even plans to take a stake in TikTok as part of a somewhat tortured plan to help Donald Trump save the popular video app.

A handful of billionaires experienced declines in their net worth, including Philippine billionaire Manuel Villar, who lost $12.6bn.

Villar’s net worth dropped to $10bn after shares of his property development firm, Golden MV Holdings Inc, dropped by 80% at the end of a six-month trading suspension for the firm.

Bloomberg's Billionaires Index has just three Irish people in its top 500. Limerick brothers and Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison sit side-by-side in 375th and 376th positions with a net worth of $9.37bn (€8bn) each. This represents a rise of $2.2bn on the same period last year.

The other Irish entry is Irish-American businessman John Grayken, the founder and owner of Lone Star Funds, a private equity firm that focuses on real estate investments based in Dallas, Texas. He is positioned at 466 with a net worth of $7.93bn (€6.7bn) a drop of $2.53bn on last year.

The return of significant IPO activity this year minted 21 new billionaires, but what came after many companies’ eye-popping debuts was often a different story.

Insiders whose stakes ballooned to at least $1 billion on the first trading day have since seen the value of those holdings plunge by an average of 23% in the following weeks or months, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

According to OxFam, a global confederation of non-government organizations, the $2.2tn growth in net worth for the world’s wealthiest 500 individuals would have been enough to lift 3.8 billion people out of poverty.

“Inequality is a deliberate policy choice. Despite record wealth at the top, public wealth is stagnating, even declining, and debt distress is growing,” said Oxfam’s international executive director, Amitabh Behar, in a statement.

The Guardian