Billionaire Elon Musk. (Photo: Reuters/VNA)
Tech billionaire Elon Musk - the owner of Tesla and SpaceX - has officially regained the title of the richest person on the planet in the 2025 world billionaires ranking announced by Forbes magazine on April 1.
With a huge fortune of 342 billion USD, billionaire Musk has surpassed French luxury goods tycoon Bernard Arnault, ending the dominance of the LVMH family at the top of the rankings.
After losing the No. 1 spot in 2023, billionaire Musk made a spectacular comeback when his asset value increased to 147 billion USD in just one year, 1.75 times higher than the previous year.
This success comes from the strong growth of electric car company Tesla, the lucrative contracts of space exploration company SpaceX with the US Government and the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) technology developed by xAI - an AI company founded by Mr. Musk.
Standing at second place in the list of the world's richest billionaires is Mr. Mark Zuckerberg - founder of Meta (parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp). Over the past year, billionaire Zuckerberg's assets increased by 39 billion USD, bringing his total value to 216 billion USD, helping him rise to the second position for the first time.
Not to be outdone, billionaire Jeff Bezos - founder of retail giant Amazon - still holds the third position with a total asset of 215 billion USD, only 1 billion USD less than Mr. Zuckerberg. Meanwhile, Mr. Larry Ellison - co-founder of multinational computer technology giant Oracle - continues to consolidate his position with 192 billion USD, ranking fourth on the list.
Meanwhile, billionaire Arnault - the boss of luxury goods empire LVMH - has been pushed down to 5th place with assets of 178 billion USD. Although LVMH is still the largest luxury group in the world, the decline in demand in China and the economic slowdown in Europe have significantly affected this empire.
This year's Forbes ranking marked a historic milestone when the number of global billionaires surpassed 3,000 for the first time, reaching 3,028, an increase of 247 billionaires compared to last year. The total assets of the super-rich also increased by 2 trillion USD, bringing the total figure to 16.1 trillion USD.
Among them, the US is still the country with the most billionaires with 902 people, followed by China (including Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) with 516 billionaires and India with 205 billionaires.
Vietnam has 5 representatives on the list of world billionaires in 2025, including Vingroup Chairman Pham Nhat Vuong and VietJet Air Chairman Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao./.
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