• A friend of Charlie Munger's says Munger doubled his money on a contrarian bet soon before his death.
• The friend, Li Lu, gave an interview in which he discussed Munger's careful approach to investing.
• Li also described dramatically different approaches to risk tolerance between Munger and Elon Musk.

Charlie Munger was still sniffing out bargains and scoring big gains at age 99, says a close friend of the late investing icon.

Munger, Warren Buffett's business partner and Berkshire Hathaway's vice chairman for more than four decades, died in late November 2023, about a month shy of his 100th birthday.

In a rare interview marking the first anniversary of Munger's death, Li Lu told the Chinese social network Zhenge Island that one of Munger's last moves was a contrarian bet.

"There was a stock that everyone disliked, and it might not be particularly politically correct," Li said. But that didn't stop Munger from studying the company and buying its shares, continued the Himalaya Capital Management founder, whom Munger once described as the "Chinese Warren Buffett."

"The week before he died, this stock had doubled from the time he started investing to that time," Li said. It's unclear which stock he was referring to. Li didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Li said the wager showed Munger retained his passion for investing until the end and "could still go against the market consensus and live to see this stock double." He said the stock remained "in the Munger family portfolio" and was "still performing very well."

Li was the only person apart from Buffett who Munger trusted to invest his family's money. He introduced Munger to BYD, the Chinese EV maker that's been one of Berkshire's best investments over the past decade.

Describing Munger's careful approach toward investing, in his interview with Zhenge Island he also seemed to allude to a story Munger had discussed at Daily Journal's annual meeting in 2017, saying Munger "read Barron's magazine every week for 50 years and only made one investment."

"In 50 years I found one investment opportunity in Barron's, out of which I made about $80 million with almost no risk," Munger said in 2017. "I took the $80 million and gave it to Li Lu, who turned it into $400 to $500 million. So I have made $400 to 500 million out of reading Barron's for 50 years and following one idea."

Munger added further details, indicating that the stock was an auto supply company named Tenneco that Apollo Global Management acquired in late 2022. He said that he made 15 times his money on the stock in about two years and that it took him only 90 minutes of research to pull the trigger after reading about it.

Lunch with Elon Musk

Li recalled a lunch with Munger and Elon Musk in which he said the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tried to win Munger's investment. He said the discussion showed their similar thinking on subjects such as batteries and science but also their stark differences in risk appetite. While Musk was willing to do things with only a 5% chance of success, he said, Munger "may need more than 80% chance of success before he will do it."

Musk has previously discussed meeting Munger. Early in 2023 he posted on X that "Munger could've invested in Tesla at ~$200M valuation when I had lunch with him in late 2008." Musk's automaker went on to become one of the world's largest companies and is now worth about $1.3 trillion.

"I was at a lunch with Munger in 2009 where he told the whole table all the ways Tesla would fail," Musk wrote in another post. "Made me quite sad, but I told him I agreed with all those reasons & that we would probably die, but it was worth trying anyway."

Correction: January 7, 2025 — This story was updated to reflect that it wasn't clear from Li Lu's interview where Charlie Munger got the idea for the contrarian bet that Li said Munger made at age 99. The story also misstated when Elon Musk posted one of his comments about Munger. It was in early 2023, not early last year.

• Warren Buffett paid tribute to Charlie Munger and pared his Apple and Bank of America bets in 2024.
• Berkshire Hathaway hit a $1 trillion market value and its cash pile ballooned to more than $300 billion.
• Buffett donated some $6 billion to good causes and updated his plan for post-mortem giving.

Warren Buffett had a year to remember in 2024 as he sold two of his favorite stocks, built his cash pile to more than $300 billion, and led Berkshire Hathaway to a $1 trillion market value for the first time.

The 94-year-old Berkshire CEO and legendary investor also paid credit to his late right-hand man, gifted more than $6 billion to good causes, and updated his plan to give away his fortune following his death.

Here are Buffett's 6 highlights of 2024:

1. Paying respects

In his annual letter in February, Buffett paid tribute to Charlie Munger, his business partner and Berkshire's vice chairman for more than four decades, who died aged 99 in November 2023.

"Though I have long been in charge of the construction crew; Charlie should forever be credited with being the architect," Buffett wrote, calling himself the "general contractor" who carried out Munger's vision for Berkshire.

Buffett also dashed hopes for a transformative acquisition anytime soon. Berkshire's vast scale means only a few companies in the country could move the needle, he said, and all of them have been "endlessly picked over by us and others."

"All in all, we have no possibility of eye-popping performance."

The investor also called out a rise in "casino-like behavior" in markets and appeared to take aim at trading apps like Robinhood once again. "The casino now resides in many homes and daily tempts the occupants."

2. Pilgrimage to Omaha

Tens of thousands of Berkshire shareholders descended on Buffett's hometown in May to attend the company's annual meeting and watch the "Oracle of Omaha" hold court for several hours.

Buffett told the crowd he'd sold a chunk of his massive Apple stake in the first quarter. He also compared artificial intelligence to nuclear weapons, and took responsibility for a losing wager on Paramount.

The Berkshire boss said he regretted not listening to Munger and betting big on Costco decades ago. He also raised the alarm on the national debt and budget deficit, dismissed foreign threats to the dollar, and declared he could earn a 50% annual return on $1 million.

3. Stocks, cash, and buybacks

Buffett and his team sold $133 billion of stocks in the first nine months of 2024, and bought less than $6 billion worth. In comparison, they sold a net $24 billion of stocks in 2023, and purchased a net $34 billion of stocks in 2022.

They spent less than $3 billion on buybacks between January and September last year, with none in the third quarter, after spending nearly $70 billion on repurchases over the previous four years (almost $52 billion of that was in 2020 and 2021.)

Ramping up stock sales and curbing buybacks helped to nearly double Berkshire's cash pile in nine months from $168 billion to a record $325 billion (or $310 billion after subtracting almost $15 billion of payables for Treasury bill purchases in the third quarter).

Berkshire's cash pile now exceeds the total value of the company just over a decade ago, and accounted for a hefty 27% of its $1.15 trillion of assets at the end of September.

Buffett and his colleagues have said they're stacking cash because they're struggling to find bargains with valuations at historic highs, and they don't mind keeping money out of an ebullient stock market.

4. Selling sacred cows

Buffett and his investment managers, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, made several striking changes to Berkshire's stock portfolio last year.

They pared Apple, their largest position, by 67% in nine months, reducing its value from $174 billion to below $70 billion. The sharp reduction shocked many as Buffett had showered praise on the iPhone maker for years, hailing it as "probably the best business I know in the world" and one of Berkshire's "four giants."

Buffett and his deputies also cut Bank of America, their no. 2 position, by about 26% between mid-July and mid-October, collecting more than $10 billion of proceeds. The sales lowered their stake from above 13% to below 10%, freeing them from having to disclose changes to the holding within a couple days. Their stake only dropped in value from $35 billion to $32 billion between January and September because the bank's stock price rose by around a fifth during that period.

Berkshire also revealed a near-$7 billion stake in insurer Chubb in its first-quarter portfolio update, trimmed holdings such as Capital One in the second quarter, and bought nearly 4% of Domino's Pizza in the third quarter while cutting several smaller holdings.

5. Giving billions

Buffett donated Berkshire shares worth $5.3 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four of his family's foundations in June.

He said those gifts meant he'd now given $55 billion to the quintet over the previous 18 years, based on how much the Berkshire shares were worth at the time of giving.

Buffett divvied up a further $1.2 billion stock donation among the four family foundations in late November, continuing a Thanksgiving tradition he started in 2022.

The latest donations reduced his number of A shares to a little more than 206,000, meaning he's given away almost 57% of his shares since pledging 99% of them to good causes in 2006.

6. Estate planning

Buffett unexpectedly published a near-1,500 word letter to shareholders alongside the news of his Thanksgiving gift.

In it, he reiterated his desire to pass along his incredible wealth to "others who were given a very short straw at birth."

Buffett revealed earlier in the year that he planned to put almost his entire fortune in a trust, and task his three children with distributing it to worthy causes after he dies. But in his mini letter in November, he acknowledged that his kids are in their late 60s and early 70s and might die before they can fulfill his vision.

The investor said that risk had led him to designate three potential successor trustees to be "on the waitlist" just in case.

Buffett also took stock of the astounding scale of wealth in America, where more than a dozen people including him are personally worth in excess of $100 billion.

"It has been mind-blowing — beyond the imaginations of Ford, Carnegie, Morgan or even Rockefeller," he wrote. "Billions became the new millions."

• Nvidia's Jensen Huang admitted he gets stage fright despite his cool persona in tech.
• Huang's nerves are shared by other tech leaders like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
• Many have worked meticulously to lessen the pressure of public speaking.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is considered a "cool guy" in the tech industry, but he revealed in a recent interview that being onstage still makes him nervous.

Huang's "60 Minutes" interview aired on December 29. The Nvidia co-founder said walking out to a big crowd at last year's GTC AI Conference was a scary experience.

"I'm an engineer, not a performer. When I walked out there, and all of the people going crazy, it took the breath out of me," Huang said after giving his keynote. "I'm still scared."

He's at the helm of a company valued at over $3 trillion, and Huang's style (like his signature black leather jacket) and his meteoric success in the booming AI field have earned him a cool guy reputation in Silicon Valley. Still, Huang acknowledged his nerves around delivering a speech — something he will have to confront again when he presents a keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas on Monday.

He's not the only tech founder to struggle with public speaking. Steve Jobs, the Apple cofounder known for leading iconic launch events, might've appeared like a natural at public speaking but reportedly planned them out months in advance.

His effortlessness was envied by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who said Jobs had a talent for looking unrehearsed while on stage. Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli wrote in their 2015 book "Becoming Steve Jobs" that he actually spent entire days going over a presentation.

"I'll never achieve that level," Gates said on an episode of the Armchair Expert podcast.

Other leaders have been open about their nerves when addressing large crowds onstage. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg turned 40 in 2024, and he said he "didn't know anything about running a company, communicating publicly, etc" when he founded Facebook as a teen.

However, age and experience have made him more comfortable being himself in public, Zuck said on Threads.

Elon Musk was one of the most outspoken voices in 2024. As the owner of X, formerly Twitter, Musk uses his account to post almost daily. Before he owned the platform, he was still an active tweeter but admitted his lack of skills in public speaking in 2019.

Warren Buffett, billionaire investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO, once said his fear of public speaking would've been detrimental to his career.

"I had been terrified of public speaking. I couldn't do it," Buffett said in the 2017 documentary "Becoming Warren Buffett."

Instead of letting his anxiety get in the way of his career, Buffett said he enrolled in a public speaking course after graduating from business school in 1951. Decades later, he still credits the course with changing his life.

• The world's 10 wealthiest people added more than $500 billion to their combined fortunes in 2024.
• The top 20 gained $700 billion and ended the year with a total worth above $3 trillion.
• Elon Musk scored a huge $203 billion gain, but other tech bosses also notched up big rises.

The richest people on the planet saw their fortunes surge in 2024 as the artificial intelligence boom, the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts, Donald Trump's election victory, and a robust economic outlook helped the stock market to roar.

The world's 10 wealthiest people grew more than $500 billion richer last year, boosting their combined net worth to just over $2 trillion — not far off the $2.3 trillion market values of Amazon and Google owner Alphabet.

Widen the lens to the top 20 names on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and the total net worth jumped $700 billion to above $3 trillion by the year's end, rivaling Microsoft's $3.1 trillion market value.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk led the pack with a $203 billion gain for the year, which lifted his personal fortune to $432 billion at the market close on December 31.

His net worth briefly touched $486 billion a couple of weeks earlier after Tesla stock surged to a record high and SpaceX's valuation leaped to $350 billion. At that point, his year-to-date gain of $257 billion exceeded the entire net worth of Jeff Bezos, no.2 on the rich list.

However, Musk wasn't the only one to notch huge wealth gains in 2024. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia boss Jensen Huang, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, and Bezos all grew between $60 billion and $80 billion wealthier as their respective companies surged in value.

Other Big Tech luminaries scored big gains too with Michael Dell, the founder of the eponymous computer maker, adding $45 billion to his fortune. Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin added $42 billion and $38 billion to their respective fortunes.

Tech leaders accounted for most of the wealth gains, but Walmart founder Sam Walton's three surviving heirs — Jim, Alice, and Rob — each grew more than $38 billion richer, thrusting the trio into the $100 billion club for the first time.

Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate owes scores of businesses like Geico and huge stakes in public companies like Coca-Cola, also gained $22 billion and ended the year on $142 billion.

Not everyone's a winner

There were a few wealth losers among the uber-wealthy, however. LVMH founder and CEO Bernard Arnault saw his fortune shrink from over $230 billion at its peak in March to $176 billion by the end of December, sending him from first place to fifth.

Indian industrialist Mukesh Ambani, Mexican telecoms mogul Carlos Slim, Indian infrastructure tycoon Gautam Adani, and L'Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers all lost money last year by Bloomberg's estimates.

The superrich mostly got wealthier because excited investors wagered the likes of Nvidia, Tesla, and Microsoft would post higher profits by playing key roles in the AI revolution.

The Fed also made its first cuts to rates after hiking them to curb runaway inflation in 2022 and 2023. That has benefited stocks by making them relatively more appealing versus fixed-income assets such as government bonds, and could boost corporate profits by encouraging spending and borrowing.

Trump's win in November pushed stocks higher too, as the former president had run on promises of pro-growth policies such as tax cuts and deregulation. Tesla in particular gained as investors bet Musk's close ties to the future president would benefit the automaker.

• Warren Buffett has long recommended a low-fee S&P 500 tracker fund to amateur investors.
• Chamath Palihapitiya says it's become riskier as a handful of stocks now dominate the index.
• Buffett mostly steers clear of tech names but Apple has been his no.1 stock for years.

Warren Buffett preaches that picking stocks and timing the market are fool's errands for the vast majority of people. He says their best bet is to simply invest in a low-fee S&P 500 index fund and hold it for the long term.

But a handful of technology stocks have become so incredibly valuable that owning the market capitalization-weighted S&P 500 is basically a concentrated bet on those risky businesses, not a wager on the stock market as a whole, Chamath Palihapitiya says.

"This needs to be fixed or it will end in disaster," the venture capitalist and cohost of the "All-In" podcast said in an X post on Saturday. He was reacting to a chart shared by Kevin Gordon, a senior investment strategist at Charles Schwab, which showed the 10 most valuable S&P 500 companies accounted for 39.9% of the benchmark index's total market cap on December 20.

Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Broadcom, Berkshire Hathaway, and Walmart are worth around $21 trillion together — a big chunk of the S&P 500's roughly $50 trillion market cap.

"Average Americans buy S&P 500 index ETFs, in part, because Buffett told them to," Palihapitiya said. "They were told they would pay very little and get diversification in the 500 best companies on earth to ride out storms."

But the Social Capital CEO and early Facebook investor said the outsize weighting of a few stocks means that "when you buy an index of 500 companies, you're really buying 10 companies with 490 others thrown in."

Palihapitiya said the lack of diversification means that if Big Tech stocks take a hit, investors could suffer huge losses as the pain to their portfolios won't be tempered much by other holdings. Amateur buyers face a "rude awakening if this isn't addressed," he added.

It's worth noting that Palihapitiya has been widely criticized for promoting high-risk special purpose acquisition deals (SPACs) during the pandemic and showing little remorse when their value cratered.

Buffett, a value investor who strives to remain within his circle of competence, has largely eschewed tech stocks throughout his career as they tend to be expensive and he lacks expert knowledge of what they do.

Yet he's counted Apple as Berkshire's largest position by far for the better part of a decade, despite paring that wager in recent quarters. The famed investor and Berkshire CEO has also hailed Alphabet and Meta as extraordinary businesses.

On the other hand, Berkshire is extremely diversified, owning scores of businesses including Geico, See's Candies, and Pilot Travel Centers. It also holds billion-dollar stakes in listed companies such as Coca-Cola and Bank of America.

Buffett has previously shrugged off shareholders' concerns about his stock portfolio being overly concentrated in Apple. But he might feel less comfortable now than in the past with amateur investors buying an index that's so dominated by a few Big Tech names.

• The world's wealthiest people have shuffled their ranks and seen their fortunes surge since 2000.
• Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, and Steve Ballmer held top-20 spots then and still do.
• Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg didn't rank in the top 20 less than 25 years ago.

Compare the wealthiest people on the planet today to a quarter-century ago, and it's striking to see how the fortunes have grown, and most of the names have changed.

Bill Gates topped Forbes' rundown of the world's richest people in 2000, the earliest list accessible using the Wayback Machine. The Microsoft cofounder's net worth has grown from $60 billion then to $105 billion at Tuesday's close — good for 15th place in the real-time rankings.

Oracle cofounder 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 also made the top 20 then and still do today.

But retaining a top 20 spot has required them to grow dramatically more wealthy since 2000. For example, Ellison's net worth has more than quadrupled from $47 billion to $217 billion.

Buffett's fortune has grown more than five-fold from about $26 billion to $143 billion, despite the investor gifting over half of his Berkshire shares to good causes since 2006.

Walton and Dell's fortunes have more than quintupled in size from roughly $20 billion to well above $100 billion.

Ballmer and Arnault have notched even larger gains, with their net worths growing from about $16 billion and $13 billion each to $128 billion and $168 billion, respectively.

Meanwhile, SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son's wealth has only grown from about $19 billion to $30 billion, dropping him from eighth place to 59th.

Several other people have fallen out of the top 10. They include Gates' late cofounder, Paul Allen; Theo and Karl Albrecht, the brothers who cofounded supermarket giant Aldi; 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 cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang now rank in the top 10.

While a $20 billion fortune would have landed someone firmly in the top 10 in 2000, a net worth of that magnitude barely cracks the top 100 nowadays.

The top 10 wealthiest individuals were worth a combined $275 billion in 2000, or about one-seventh of their $2 trillion in total wealth at Tuesday's close. The 20 richest people were worth $406 billion then, a fraction of the $3 trillion they're worth today.

Musk alone is worth $454 billion today, exceeding the combined wealth of the top 20 in 2000.

The consistency between the two lists shows how companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, Berkshire Hathaway, Dell, and Walmart have gained value over the course of decades, enabling their largest shareholders to retain their top 10 spots almost a quarter-century later.

But it also underscores how businesses like Amazon, Alphabet, Tesla, Meta, and Nvidia have skyrocketed in value and propelled their biggest backers into top 10 positions.

• The elite group worth more than $100 billion includes Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates.
• The 16 members have grown almost $900 billion richer this year and are jointly worth $2.8 trillion.
• Walmart heirs Jim, Rob, and Alice Walton joined the club for the first time in September.

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg are among the handful of people on the planet with a net worth above $100 billion.

Members of this elite group have amassed 12-digit fortunes by owning huge amounts of stock in some of the world's most valuable companies. Most are founders and either current or former CEOs, and some, such as Warren Buffett, would be much richer if they didn't give billions to charity.

The 16 people in this very exclusive club have a combined wealth of about $2.8 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. They're worth more than Amazon or Google owner Alphabet, which command market values of around $2.4 trillion each.

All but one of them have grown richer this year, adding a net $890 billion to their collective fortunes. Walmart ($762 billion), Eli Lilly ($740 billion), and JPMorgan ($675 billion) are all worth significantly less than that.

Walmart heirs Jim, Rob, and Alice Walton joined the exclusive group in September, thanks to their net worths surging by upward of $43 billion this year.

Here's the list of individuals worth at least $100 billion, showing Bloomberg's estimate on December 16, how much it's changed this calendar year, and the source of their wealth.

1. Elon Musk

Net worth: $474 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$245 billion

Source of wealth: Tesla and SpaceX stock

Elon Musk is the CEO of the electric-vehicle maker Tesla and the spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX. He's also the owner of X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. His other businesses include The Boring Company, Neuralink, and xAI.

Musk's wealth has nearly doubled this year — surging by $245 billion or almost Jeff Bezos' entire net worth — because Tesla stock has jumped by over 85% and SpaceX's valuation has surged to $350 billion, per Bloomberg.

2. Jeff Bezos

Net worth: $251 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$74.5 billion

Source of wealth: Amazon stock

Jeff Bezos is the founder, executive chairman, and former CEO of Amazon, the e-commerce and cloud-computing giant.

He also founded the space company Blue Origin and owns The Washington Post.

3. Mark Zuckerberg

Net worth: $221 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$92.6 billion

Source of wealth: Meta stock

Mark Zuckerberg is the cofounder, chairman, and CEO of Meta Platforms, the social-media titan behind Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads.

Meta's Reality Labs division makes virtual-reality and augmented-reality headsets and experiences.

4. Larry Ellison

Net worth: $194 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$70.9 billion

Source of wealth: Oracle and Tesla stock

Larry Ellison is the cofounder, chief technology officer, and former CEO of Oracle, an enterprise software company specializing in cloud computing and database platforms.

He invested in Tesla prior to joining the automaker's board in 2018 and made more than 10 times his money on paper by the time his term as a director ended in August 2022.

5. Bernard Arnault

Net worth: $178 billion

YTD change in wealth: -$29.3 billion

Source of wealth: LVMH stock

Bernard Arnault is the founder, chairman, and CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. His conglomerate owns a bevy of luxury brands, including Dior, Fendi, Dom Pérignon, Sephora, and Tiffany & Co.

LVMH stock has struggled this year, falling over 10% and eroding Arnault's net worth in the process.

6. Larry Page

Net worth: $175 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$48.2 billion

Source of wealth: Alphabet stock

Larry Page cofounded Google with his Stanford University classmate Sergey Brin in a friend's garage in 1998 and served as CEO until 2001.

He took the reins again between 2011 and 2015 after Google was restructured as a subsidiary of Alphabet alongside other businesses such as YouTube and Waymo.

7. Bill Gates

Net worth: $165 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$23.9 billion

Source of wealth: Microsoft stock

Bill Gates is the cofounder and former CEO of Microsoft, which makes the Office application suite, the cloud-computing platform Microsoft Azure, and Xbox consoles.

He's renowned for his philanthropic work at the helm of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the world's largest charitable entities.

8. Sergey Brin

Net worth: $164 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$44.3 billion

Source of wealth: Alphabet stock

Sergey Brin cofounded Google with Page in 1998 and served as the search-and-advertising titan's first president.

He and Page stepped down from their respective roles as Alphabet's president and CEO in 2019.

9. Steve Ballmer

Net worth: $156 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$25.4 billion

Source of wealth: Microsoft stock

Steve Ballmer served as Microsoft's CEO between 2000 and 2014. He joined the company in 1980 as Bill Gates' assistant, initially negotiating a profit share, which he later swapped for an equity stake when it became excessively large.

Ballmer retired as CEO in 2014 with a 4% stake — a position now worth more than $130 billion. He promptly bought the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion and remains the basketball team's owner.

10. Warren Buffett

Net worth: $143 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$23 billion

Source of wealth: Berkshire Hathaway stock

Warren Buffett acquired Berkshire Hathaway when it was a failing textile mill in 1965 and has since grown it into one of the world's largest companies. His nearly 15% stake is worth around $141 billion.

The famed investor's conglomerate owns scores of businesses, including GEICO, See's Candies, and BNSF Railway, and holds multibillion-dollar stakes in public companies such as Apple and Coca-Cola.

Buffett has gifted about half his Berkshire shares to the Gates Foundation and his four family foundations since 2006.

11. Michael Dell

Net worth: $130 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$51.4 billion

Source of wealth: Dell stock

Michael Dell is the founder, chairman, and CEO of the eponymous computer maker. Dell stock has roughly tripled since March last year to $119, valuing the company at over $80 billion, as investors wager it will be a key beneficiary from the AI boom.

Dell owns about 46% of his company, and pocketed well over $10 billion from the sale of Dell-backed VMware to Broadcom last year.

12. Jim Walton

Net worth: $117 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$44.5 billion

Source of wealth: Walmart stock

Jim Walton is the youngest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton, who gave each of his four children a 20% stake in the budding retail business over 70 years ago. Jim and his two surviving siblings, Rob and Alice, each still own over 11% of the company.

Jim's net worth crossed $100 billion in September following an 80% surge in Walmart stock this year.

13. Jensen Huang

Net worth: $115 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$71.4 billion

Source of wealth: Nvidia stock

Jensen Huang cofounded Nvidia in 1993, but the microchip maker has become a market darling within the past two years as its semiconductors have proven pivotal to developing artificial intelligence.

Nvidia's stock price has skyrocketed from under $15 at the end of 2022 to $132. That has boosted the company's value to $3.2 trillion — meaning it now rivals Apple as the world's most valuable company —and bolstered Huang's superrich status in the process.

14. Rob Walton

Net worth: $115 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$43.3 billion

Source of wealth: Walmart stock

Rob Walton, Sam Walton's eldest, sat on Walmart's board for more than 40 years before retiring this June.

His net worth passed $100 billion for the first time in September, making him the second Walton to join the club after his younger brother, Jim.

15. Alice Walton

Net worth: $114 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$43.8 billion

Source of wealth: Walmart stock

Alice Walton is Sam Walton's only daughter, and the world's richest woman after overtaking L'Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers earlier this year.

She joined her brothers, Jim and Rob, in the $100 billion club in September.

16. Amancio Ortega

Net worth: $104 billion

YTD change in wealth: +$16.9 billion

Source of wealth: Inditex stock

Amancio Ortega is the founder and former chairman of Inditex, a fashion retail group home to brands such as Zara, Bershka, and Massimo Dutti.

The billionaire philanthropist and real-estate investor stopped running Inditex in 2011. His daughter Marta Ortega Pérez was appointed chair at the end of 2021.

• Elon Musk is almost $200 billion richer than Jeff Bezos and worth more than Costco.
• His net worth hit $447 billion after Tesla stock jumped and SpaceX's valuation rose to $350 billion.
• Just five years ago, Musk was worth about $25 billion, and Tesla was valued below $100 billion.

Elon Musk is nearly $200 billion richer than Jeff Bezos, and personally worth more than Costco, after adding $63 billion to his fortune in a single day.

His net worth surged to $447 billion on Wednesday, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, after Tesla stock jumped 6% and SpaceX's valuation leaped to $350 billion based on employee share sales.

Musk's fortune has ballooned by $218 billion this year — a sum that exceeds the net worth of every other person on the rich list except Amazon's Bezos ($249 billion) and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg ($224 billion).

Musk is now more than twice as wealthy as Oracle's Larry Ellison ($198 billion), and more than three times as rich as Warren Buffett ($144 billion).

His one-day gain — the largest in the index's history — rivals the total wealth of Binance cofounder Changpeng Zhao, ranked 23rd with a $63.2 billion fortune. It also helped to lift the combined wealth of the 500 richest people on the planet to above $10 trillion for the first time, Bloomberg said.

Musk is now worth more on paper than the vast majority of US public companies, including Costco ($442 billion), Home Depot ($419 billion), and Netflix ($400 billion).

His wealth is largely made up of his roughly 13% stake and some contested stock options in Tesla, and his 42% slice of SpaceX. Musk's other businesses include xAI, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and X Corp, formerly Twitter.

Tesla shares have surged more than 70% this year to $425 at Wednesday's close, valuing the company at nearly $1.4 trillion. That figure comfortably exceeds the roughly $1 trillion market value of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and approaches the $1.6 trillion value of Zuckerberg's Meta.

The electric vehicle maker's shares have soared as investors bet it will harness artificial intelligence in revolutionary products such as self-driving cars and humanoid robots.

Musk's prominent role in Donald Trump's campaign, and his emergence as a close advisor to the president-elect who's tasked him with streamlining the US government, have also fueled optimism around his companies.

SpaceX is now valued at $350 billion based on the latest price paid by the company and its backers to buy shares from employees, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. The Starlink owner's valuation was previously $210 billion after a secondary share sale in June.

It's worth underscoring how dramatic Musk's wealth jump has been. He was worth less than $170 billion as recently as April, and only about $25 billion five years ago — around 1/18 of his net worth now.

Tesla was worth less than $100 billion during the Covid crash of 2020, or about 1/14 of its valuation today.

• Berkshire Hathaway CEO and chairman Warren Buffett's net worth is an estimated $146 billion.
• He's the world's 10th-richest person, per Bloomberg, above Sergey Brin and the Walton siblings.
• Buffett is known for living modestly and being one of the world's most generous philanthropists.

Warren Buffett is having a good year — his fortune has ballooned by around $26 billion.

With an estimated net worth of $146 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the 94-year-old Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO is the 10th-wealthiest person in the world. He's almost $20 billion richer than Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and worth considerably more than Michael Dell and any of the three Walton heirs, for example.

Looking at Buffett's frugal ways, though, you might not know it.

Still living in the house he bought in the 1950s and driving an equally modest car, the "Oracle of Omaha" prefers to keep and grow his money rather than take it out of the bank. He often eats breakfast from McDonald's and borrowed furniture when his children were born.

See how Buffett spends — or doesn't spend — his billions.

Buffett's hobbies include bridge, golf, and playing the ukulele.

Buffett loves playing bridge, sometimes playing for over 8 hours a week, the Washington Post reported. He also likes to hit the green for some golf, spends a great deal of his time reading, and loves to play the ukulele — he said in 2020 that he has a collection of 22 ukuleles. He's played the ukulele since he was young and used his skills to court his first wife Susan, their son Peter once told NPR.

Buffett once bought and donated 17 Hilo ukuleles to the North Omaha branch of the nonprofit Girls Inc, and showed up at the group's building to give a group lesson.

His fortune is largely tied to his investment company.

The vast majority of Buffett's net worth is tied to Berkshire Hathaway, his publicly traded conglomerate that owns businesses like Geico and See's Candies and holds multibillion-dollar stakes in companies like Apple and Coca-Cola.

Buffett owns about 15% of Berkshire — a stake valued at over $130 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway itself has assets worth more than $1 trillion.

Buffett began investing at a young age.

The CEO of Berkshire Hathaway began building his wealth by investing in the stock market at age 11, according to Forbes, and first filed a tax return at the age of 13.

As a teenager, he was raking in about $175 a month by delivering The Washington Post — more than his teachers (and most adults). Berkshire Hathaway later owned nearly 30% of the newspaper for 40 years until shedding the stake in 2014.

He also sold calendars, used golf balls, and stamps. He had amassed the equivalent of $53,000 by the time he was just 16.

Most of Buffett's fortune was built later in life.

The vast majority of Buffett's wealth was earned after his 50th birthday. His salary at Berkshire Hathaway last year was just $100,000, the same as it's been the last 40 years, and he reimbursed the company $50,000 in part to cover his personal calls and postage.

The company spent triple Buffett's yearly salary — $313,595 — on his personal and home security last year, according to the company's proxy statement.

Buffett's worst investment was a Sinclair gas station.

Buffett's greatest investment mistake is said to be a Sinclair gas station that he bought in 1951 at the age of 21 — he bought a stake in the station with a friend, and the business was consistently outsold by the larger Texaco station opposite it.

He eventually lost the $2,000 he invested out of his total net wealth of $10,000 at the time, Yahoo Finance reported, referencing Glen Arnold's book "The Deals of Warren Buffett, Volume 1: The First $100M." 

 

Buffett has been married twice and has three children.

Buffett married his first wife, Susan Buffett, in 1952. Together they had three children: Susie, Howard, and Peter. Though he and Susan remained married until Susan's death in 2004, they had lived apart since the 1970s. He married his second wife and longtime companion, Astrid Menks, in 2006.

When Susie was born, Buffett apparently turned a dresser drawer into a bassinet for her to sleep in, according to Roger Lowenstein's 2008 biography of the billionaire. For his second child, Howard, he borrowed a crib.

Buffett lives a modest lifestyle.

Despite his multibillionaire status, Buffett has long lived a relatively modest and frugal lifestyle. He previously told CNBC and Yahoo Finance's "Off the Cuff" that he's "never had any great desire to have multiple houses and all kinds of things and multiple cars."

Buffett lives in the same home he bought in the 1950s in Omaha, Nebraska.

Buffett lives in a modest home in Omaha, Nebraska, which he once called the "third-best investment" he's ever made in a letter to Berkshire shareholders.

He bought the home for $31,500 in 1958 — adjusted for inflation, that's about $342,000. It's now worth an estimated $1.4 million, according to Zillow, and spans 6,280 square feet with five bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.

Buffett has made some security upgrades since buying it and it's now guarded by fences and security cameras.

Buffett used to own a vacation home in California.

In 1971, Buffett purchased a vacation home in Laguna Beach, California, for $150,000. Part of a gated community called Emerald Bay, the house has six bedrooms, is walking distance from the beach, and was renovated after Buffett bought it. 

He initially put it on the market in early 2017 for $11 million, then cut the price down to $3 million later that year. It sold in October 2018 for $7.5 million, after almost two years on the market. 

Buffett's choice of vehicle has also long been modest.

Unlike many other ultra-wealthy individuals, Buffett has long driven a fairly modest set of wheels.

He previously drove a 2001 Lincoln Town Car with a license plate that read "THRIFTY" for about a decade, before auctioning it off for charity and replacing it with a 2006 Cadillac DTS. In 2014, he replaced the DTS with a Cadillac XTS, according to Forbes.

"The truth is, I only drive about 3,500 miles a year so I will buy a new car very infrequently," Buffett once told Forbes.

Buffett has splurged on a private jet.

One splurge Buffett has made is on a private jet. Buffett spent $850,000 on a used Falcon 20 jet in 1986, then sold the first jet and upgraded to a different used jet in 1989, spending $6.7 million.

He and his late business partner Charlie Munger nicknamed the second jet "The Indefensible," Buffett revealed in a letter to shareholders.

Buffett used a flip phone for years.

Despite the fact that Berkshire Hathaway is a major Apple shareholder, Buffett didn't upgrade to a smartphone until 2020.

Before that he preferred the Samsung SCH-U320, which can be bought on eBay for under $20.

Though Buffett did make the switch to an iPhone eventually, he told CNBC that he just uses it "as a phone."

Buffett's style includes suits from a Chinese designer and affordable haircuts.

Buffett has said he has about 20 suits, all made in China by designer Madame Li, according to CNBC.

He has a longstanding friendship with Li, an entrepreneur who worked her way up in the business. Buffett's gotten the same $18 hair cut for years from a barber shop in the same building as his office.

Buffett regularly eats at McDonald's and drinks a lot of Coke.

Buffett once told Fortune that he eats "like a six-year-old." He gets his breakfast at McDonald's almost every morning on the way to work.

In 2017, he was spending no more than $3.17 on his order, paying with exact change, he said in the HBO documentary "Becoming Warren Buffett." He also drinks at least five Cokes a day.

 

Buffett is longtime friends with Bill Gates.

Buffett once went to McDonald's in Hong Kong with longtime friend Bill Gates and paid with coupons, Gates reminisced in his 2017 annual letter.

The letter reads: "Remember the laugh we had when we traveled together to Hong Kong and decided to get lunch at McDonald's? You offered to pay, dug into your pocket, and pulled out …coupons!"

Gates has described Buffett as a "thoughtful and kind" friend, and has said that every time he visits Omaha, Buffett drives to the airport to pick him up.

Buffett is one of the world's most generous philanthropists.

Warren Buffett is considered one of the world's most generous philanthropists. He pledged in 2006 to donate about 85% of his Berkshire Class A shares to five foundations: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (named after his late wife), and three foundations run by his three children.

He teamed up with Bill and Melinda Gates in 2010 to form The Giving Pledge, an initiative that asks the world's wealthiest people to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy. Buffett himself has pledged that 99% of his wealth will go to philanthropy during his lifetime or upon his death.

As of 2023, the shares he's already given away were worth about $50 billion based on their value at the time of donation, or about $130 billion given Berkshire Hathaway's stock value at the time. If Buffett had kept those shares rather than donating them, he'd likely be the world's wealthiest person with a net worth of nearly $300 billion.

Buffett plans on leaving his kids $2 billion each, the Washington Post reported in 2014. He once said in a letter to shareholders that he recommends that super-wealthy families "leave the children enough so that they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing."

Even for Buffett, there are things that money can't buy.

"There are things money can't buy," Buffett once said at a shareholders' meeting. "I don't think standard of living equates with cost of living beyond a certain point. My life couldn't be happier. In fact, it'd be worse if I had six or eight houses. So, I have everything I need to have, and I don't need any more because it doesn't make a difference after a point."

• Disney CEO Bob Iger says diet and exercise are critical to doing his job well.
• Iger said he wakes up early and works out because it gets his mind and body ready for the day ahead.
• He said that exercising gives him energy and helps him to motivate others.

Disney may be known for its magic, but there's nothing mystical about one of CEO Bob Iger's tips for excelling as a leader: diet and exercise.

Iger, 73, wakes up early and works out for about an hour "for sanity and vanity purposes," he told a recent episode of the "In Good Company" podcast.

Exercising clears his head and prepares him for the day ahead, Iger said. "Staying in shape, having stamina is critical for me, and that's eating well and exercising and just taking care of my body and my mind. I could not do this job if I were not in some form of physical and mental health."

Disney is one of the biggest US companies with $90 billion-plus in annual revenues and a market value north of $200 billion.

Iger first served as CEO between 2005 and 2020, spearheading the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox's entertainment assets. He returned to lead the company in late 2022.

He's widely credited with turning Disney into a hitmaking machine that monetizes successes like "Frozen" across movies, TV shows, theme parks, resorts, cruises, toys, clothes, and video games.

Iger, who is known to rise at 4.15 a.m., said that getting up early vitalizes him and "a great leader has to be an energetic leader."

The Disney chief emphasized he's not a machine and doesn't always come bouncing into the office.

"Look, I'm a human being, so if I'm really tired from global travel and long hours and who knows what, I'm not afraid to show that to my people, because I think that's a way of being relatable," he said. "They feel that too — it's human nature. Sometimes you feel overworked and tired."

But Iger said that "for the most part, you've got to bring your energy to your job every moment of the day, meaning every waking hour, because it's motivating," he said. "Energy is motivating."

Iger is far from the only CEO to prioritize health and fitness. Apple's Tim Cook also wakes before dawn to work out for an hour most days, while Meta's Mark Zuckerberg has taken up martial arts in recent years.

On the other hand, Warren Buffett, the 94-year-old CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, famously enjoys Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and other junk food.

• Warren Buffett said he would gift Berkshire stock worth $1.2 billion to family foundations.
• The investor also wrote a mini letter to shareholders running to almost 1,500 words.
• Buffett spoke about his estate planning, his children, his luck in life, and philanthropy.

Warren Buffett surprised shareholders on Monday with a near-1,500-word letter alongside his usual Thanksgiving gift to four of his family's foundations.

The famed investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO said he would shortly convert 1,600 of his Class A shares into 2.4 million Class B shares, worth about $1.2 billion.

He pledged to distribute 1.5 million of those shares to The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation — named after his late wife — and 300,000 shares to each of his three kids' foundations: The Sherwood Foundation, The Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and NoVo Foundation.

Buffett picked more trustees to share his wealth

In his unexpected missive to Berkshire shareholders, Buffett said the gifts would reduce his personal stockpile to 206,363 A shares, worth $149 billion. He's now given away 56.6% of his shares since pledging 99% of them to good causes in 2006.

The "Oracle of Omaha" said he and his late wife owned 508,998 A shares at the time of her death in 2004.

All else being equal, if Buffett still owned all those shares they'd be worth $367 billion, making him the world's richest man and wealthier than Elon Musk, who's worth $348 billion per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Buffett said his late wife's estate was worth about $3 billion, and 96% of that went into the pair's foundation. She bequeathed $10 million to their three children — Howard, Susie, and Peter — which was "the first large gift we had given to any of them," he said.

"These bequests reflected our belief that hugely wealthy parents should leave their children enough so they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing," Buffett wrote.

The legendary stock picker reiterated his comments earlier this year that he now believes his kids are ready to handle the vast responsibility of distributing his Berkshire shares, which make up 99.5% of his wealth.

But he acknowledged that his children, now in their late 60s and early 70s, might be unable to deploy his fortune before they die. "And tomorrow's decisions are likely to be better made by three live and well-directed brains than by a dead hand," Buffett wrote.

"As such, three potential successor trustees have been designated. Each is well known to my children and makes sense to all of us. They are also somewhat younger than my children," Buffett said, adding those individuals are "on the waitlist" and he hoped his children disbursed all his assets.

The reality of philanthropy

Buffett explained why the foundation that holds his wealth after he dies will require a unanimous vote for every action it takes. The investor said his children will be inundated by requests and the policy will help ensure the money is used wisely. Also, when one says "no" to a request for a gift, they can prevent follow-up asks by firmly saying their siblings would never approve it.

The billionaire also offered some advice on passing down wealth.

"I have one further suggestion for all parents, whether they are of modest or staggering wealth," he said. "When your children are mature, have them read your will before you sign it."

Involving them in the process will ensure they understand your logic and their post-mortem responsibilities, Buffett said.

Spreading the luck

In the letter — which was curt compared to Buffett's famous annual letter, which ran over 6,000 words this year and has previously exceeded 13,000 words — Buffett reflected on how lucky he was to be born in the US as a white male. He noted that his two sisters, Doris and Bertie, grew up with fewer opportunities than him.

Buffett said he felt confident he'd be rich early in his life, but he never dreamed of the wealth that has become attainable in the US in recent decades.

"It has been mind-blowing — beyond the imaginations of Ford, Carnegie, Morgan or even Rockefeller," he said. "Billions became the new millions."

Buffett said that "the real action from compounding takes place in the final twenty years of a lifetime. By not stepping on any banana peels, I now remain in circulation at 94 with huge sums in savings — call these units of deferred consumption — that can be passed along to others who were given a very short straw at birth."

The investor said he and both his wives believed in equal opportunity at birth and didn't find conspicuous consumption to be "admirable," and he was pleased so many of his shareholders have gifted their wealth to society.

Buffett added that his children shared his and his siblings' values and while they're "comfortable financially," they're not "preoccupied by wealth. Their mother, from whom they learned these values, would be very proud of them. As am I."

• The world's 10 biggest wealth gainers have grown $790 billion richer in 2024.
• Elon Musk leads the list with a $257 billion gain that has boosted his net worth to $486 billion.
• Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Jensen Huang are all up more than $70 billion.

Ten people have grown their personal fortunes by a combined $790 billion this year — a figure larger than the market value of Walmart ($767 billion).

The biggest wealth gainers of 2024 include Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The buzz around artificial intelligence, a solid outlook for the US economy, and market expectations about Donald Trump's second term in office have boosted their companies' stock prices, benefiting them as major shareholders.

Here are the 10 greatest wealth builders this year as of the market close on Tuesday, December 17.

1. Elon Musk

Year-to-date wealth gain: $257 billion

Net worth: $486 billion

Source of wealth gain: Tesla and SpaceX stock

Elon Musk is the CEO of automaker Tesla and spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX. He's also the owner of X, the social network previously known as Twitter, along with Neuralink, xAI, and The Boring Company.

Musk's $257 billion wealth gain this year exceeds the total net worth of Jeff Bezos, the second-richest person on the planet. The serial entrepreneur could soon become the first individual to amass a $500 billion fortune.

2. Mark Zuckerberg

Year-to-date wealth gain: $90.9 billion

Net worth: $219 billion

Source of wealth gain: Meta stock

Mark Zuckerberg is the cofounder and CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads.

Meta stock has soared 75% this year as investors wager Zuckerberg's big bets on AI and the metaverse will pay off in the years ahead. Zuckerberg has added about $90 billion to his net worth as a result, propelling him into third place on Bloomberg's rich list.

3. Jeff Bezos

Year-to-date wealth gain: $72.9 billion

Net worth: $250 billion

Source of wealth gain: Amazon stock

Jeff Bezos is Amazon's founder, executive chairman, and former CEO.

Amazon shares have leaped 52% this year as investors bet the online retailer can harness AI to supercharge its sales and leverage Amazon Web Services to become a key provider of cloud infrastructure to AI companies.

4. Larry Ellison

Year-to-date wealth gain: $70.4 billion

Net worth: $193 billion

Source of wealth gain: Oracle and Tesla stock

Larry Ellison is the cofounder, executive chairman, and chief technology officer of Oracle, one of the largest enterprise software companies.

Oracle stock has jumped 61% this year as the company has emerged as a key provider of cloud data centers for AI businesses, fueling a $70 billion increase in Ellison's net worth.

Ellison purchased more than 1.5% of Tesla prior to joining its board in December 2018, making him the electric-vehicle maker's second-largest individual shareholder after Musk. He's believed to have retained his stake, now worth upward of $20 billion, since resigning as a director in 2022.

5. Jensen Huang

Year-to-date wealth gain: $70 billion

Net worth: $114 billion

Source of wealth gain: Nvidia stock

Jensen Huang is the founder and CEO of Nvidia, the graphics chip maker that has emerged as a critical seller of "picks and shovels" to the AI gold rush.

Nvidia's stock has surged 163% this year, making it one of the world's most valuable companies with a $3.2 trillion market value and lifting Huang's net worth by $70 billion.

6. Michael Dell

Year-to-date wealth gain: $48.9 billion

Net worth: $127 billion

Source of wealth gain: Dell Technologies stock

Michael Dell is the founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, the maker of PCs, printers, and other computing equipment.

Dell shares have soared 55% this year as the company has shifted its focus toward AI-powered devices and servers.

7. Larry Page

Year-to-date wealth gain: $47.4 billion

Net worth: $174 billion

Source of wealth gain: Alphabet stock

Larry Page cofounded Google in 1998 and was the company's CEO until 2001 and again between 2011 and 2015 after Google was restructured as a subsidiary of Alphabet.

Alphabet shares have surged 40% this year as investors wager the search-and-advertising titan can dominate AI. The stock jump has fueled a $47 billion rise in Page's net worth.

8. Jim Walton

Year-to-date wealth gain: $45.1 billion

Net worth: $118 billion

Source of wealth gain: Walmart stock

Jim Walton is the youngest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton and, like his siblings, one of the retailer's largest shareholders with an 11%-plus stake.

Walmart stock has climbed 82% this year, fueled by resilient consumer spending in the face of historic inflation and soaring interest rates in recent years. The surge led to Walton amassing a $100 billion fortune for the first time in September.

9. Alice Walton

Year-to-date wealth gain: $44.4 billion

Net worth: $114 billion

Source of wealth gain: Walmart stock

Alice Walton is the only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton.

She overtook L'Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers in August to become the world's richest woman.

10. Rob Walton

Year-to-date wealth gain: $43.8 billion

Net worth: $115 billion

Source of wealth gain: Walmart stock

Rob Walton is the eldest son of Sam Walton and an heir to the Walmart fortune.

He and his siblings owe a big chunk of their wealth to their father, who handed them each a 20% stake in the family business over 70 years ago instead of having them inherit his fortune upon his death, in turn avoiding paying billions of dollars in estate taxes.