The world’s rich list has become, almost entirely, a list of technology founders. On the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of October 3, nine of the ten richest people are tied to technology companies, led by Elon Musk at $977 billion, and the gap between the top spot and everyone else has widened to a degree the index has not seen before in this cycle.

The top 10

Bloomberg’s index, which updates after each New York trading day, ranks the ten richest people in this order: Elon Musk ($977 billion), Larry Page ($294 billion), Jeff Bezos ($277 billion), Sergey Brin ($273 billion), Michael Dell ($260 billion), Mark Zuckerberg ($257 billion), Jensen Huang, Larry Ellison ($192 billion), Steve Ballmer and Warren Buffett ($143 billion). Buffett is the only name in the ten whose fortune does not come from technology.

Musk’s lead

Musk’s fortune is now more than three times that of Page, the second-richest. The index shows it up $357 billion this year. That is consistent with where the year began: a Yahoo Finance segment on January 1 put his net worth at about $623 billion, with most of the gain coming from the rise in SpaceX’s valuation and Musk owning more than 40 percent of the company. SpaceX now trades publicly under the ticker SPCX, which ties his index figure to a daily stock price. As GyanMuse reported last week, a TheStreet analysis put SpaceX shares at about 2,260 times forward GAAP earnings, using Seeking Alpha data, so a large part of the number rests on investor expectations.

The biggest climber: Michael Dell

Dell stands out as the largest mover below Musk. The index shows his fortune up $120 billion this year, to $260 billion, which puts him fifth. Entrepreneur reported in late June that Dell Technologies’ shares had risen 225 percent so far that year, lifting the company’s market value to $281 billion, and that he had passed Zuckerberg, Ellison, Huang and Buffett. Dell Technologies sells AI server hardware, which is the part of the technology chain that has drawn the heaviest investment over the past two years.

Zuckerberg’s turnaround

Zuckerberg is sixth at $257 billion, up $24.2 billion this year on the index. His position was less secure late last year, when Barron’s noted that AI was having the opposite influence on Meta’s fortunes, as investors reacted to the company’s heavy spending on AI infrastructure and pay packages for top researchers. His standing this autumn reflects a recovery in Meta’s share price since then.

A reminder of how quickly it moves

The ranking is a snapshot of stock prices, and it can change quickly. In October 2025, Barron’s put Larry Ellison’s net worth at $323 billion on the Bloomberg index, a firm second place. On October 3, the index put him at $192 billion, eighth. That is a fall of about $131 billion in a year, driven by the share price of Oracle, in which Ellison holds a large stake. The AI boom has created these fortunes, and the same exposure means they can shrink as fast as they grew.

Different lists, different numbers

Readers comparing rankings will find different figures. Forbes, which uses its own methodology, put Musk at $936 billion as of October 1, after a September gain of about $44 billion tied to a 5 percent rise in SpaceX’s stock, and it removes unvested restricted stock from his total. The numbers in this article are Bloomberg’s, as of the close of trading on October 2.