You know when you can’t sleep some nights and accidentally find yourself down a Wikipedia rabbit hole? That’s how I can end up reading about who the richest person in the world is at stupid o’clock on a Tuesday.
I thought that the answer would be very easy. It transpires these billionaires swap positions more often than Premier League football clubs change managers.
My rent went up £50 last month and I had a minor breakdown. Meanwhile, these lots gain or lose billions before their morning coffee gets cold. Different world, innit?
Elon Musk Is Still Winning (For Now)
As of September 2025, Elon Musk is back on top. Again. Still. Depends on how you’re counting.
His wealth hovers between $384 billion and $480 billion, depending on which billionaires index you trust and what Tesla’s stock price did that morning. Gosh, think of your net worth changing by billions before breakfast.
Musk has been the richest person for 16 months straight at this point, which is like forever in billionaire years. His money comes from Tesla, SpaceX, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, and his AI firm xAI.
The Elon Musk net worth figure makes your head spin. We’re talking about wealth that could literally fund multiple space programmes. Which, to be fair, he’s actually doing.
Larry Ellison Briefly Nicked the Top Spot
Here’s where it gets interesting. The Oracle software bloke Larry Ellison had a single-day stint as the world’s richest on 10 September, 2025.
For a day, the 81-year-old tech founder became the richest person in the world. Currently, he’s valued at around $342 billion, which means he is comfortably the second richest person in the world.
That’s still mental money. But in the days after sitting atop the list, he lost about $34 billion, a reminder of just how volatile those standings really are. Thirty-four billion evaporated more quickly than my will to live on Monday morning.
Ellison’s wealth comes from Oracle, the tech company he founded over forty years ago. The company is worth nearly a trillion dollars now, which sounds made up but isn’t.
The Top 10 Richest People Are Basically A Tech Convention
Looking at the top 10 richest person in the world list for 2025, it’s mostly tech billionaires and one luxury goods mogul who snuck in.
Mark Zuckerberg is sitting at number three with about $261 billion. Facebook money still prints cash, apparently, despite everyone saying they’ve deleted the app.
Jeff Bezos’s net worth hovers around $229 billion these days. The Amazon founder used to be number one for years, but he’s dropped down the rankings. Still stupidly rich, though. Just not stupidly rich enough to stay on top.
Bernard Arnault from LVMH pops in and out of the top spots depending on how luxury handbags are selling. His wealth fluctuates with the stock market more than most because luxury goods are weird like that.
Who Is The Richest Woman In The World?
Good question. Glad someone’s asking.
Alice Walton, from the Walmart family, is currently the richest woman globally, with a net worth of $112 billion.
That’s genuinely impressive wealth. But notice the massive gap? The richest woman has about a quarter of what the richest man has. Says something about wealth inequality between genders, doesn’t it?
There aren’t many women in the top 10 at all, which feels wrong given half the planet is female. Most super-wealthy women inherited their money rather than building companies, which tells you something about who gets funding and opportunities.
These Numbers Don’t Mean Much To Normal People
Here’s the thing about asking who is the richest person in the world: the answer’s almost meaningless to regular folks.
What’s the actual difference between $300 billion and $400 billion? At that level, it’s just numbers on a screen. You can’t spend it all. Nobody can. You couldn’t spend a billion pounds in a lifetime if you tried, let alone hundreds of billions.
These people have more money than entire countries. Musk’s wealth increased by $23.6 billion this year alone. That’s more than some nations’ entire GDP. Mental.
The Rankings Change Weekly
What makes following this stuff interesting (or depressing, depending on your mood) is how fast things change.
Stock prices go up, and you’re suddenly $10 billion richer. Stock prices go down, and you’ve lost the equivalent of a small country’s economy. All before lunch.
The billionaires probably don’t even notice. When you’ve got hundreds of billions, losing a few billion is like us dropping a fiver down the sofa cushions. Annoying, but not exactly life-changing.
Why Do We Care About This?
Honest answer? We’re nosy. We want to know who’s got the most toys.
There’s something fascinating about extreme wealth, even if it’s completely removed from our reality. It’s like watching nature documentaries about animals in the Arctic, which is interesting, but you’ll never experience it yourself.
Plus, these people run companies that affect our daily lives. Musk is building electric cars and rockets. Bezos changed how we shop. Zuckerberg’s platforms are where your nan shares dodgy memes. Their wealth comes from stuff we actually use.
The Real Answer Changes Every Day
So who is the richest person in the world right now, today, this exact moment?
Probably Elon Musk. But check again tomorrow, and it might be Larry Ellison. Or Bezos could have a good week and climb back up. Or someone’s company could announce massive profits, and they’ll jump up the rankings.
The billionaires index updates daily because these fortunes change constantly. It’s not like they’ve got $400 billion sitting in a bank account (imagine the interest, though). Their wealth is mostly shares in companies they own, which means it fluctuates with the stock market.
What This Actually Tells Us
These rankings show us where power and influence sit in the world. Tech dominates. American companies dominate. And the wealth gap between the super-rich and everyone else keeps getting wider.
The youngest billionaire is apparently 19-year-old Livia Voigt from Brazil, which makes you question all your life choices, doesn’t it?
The numbers are so big they become meaningless. But the implications aren’t. This much wealth concentrated in so few hands affects economies, politics, and society.
Look, Here’s What I Reckon
So yeah, who is the richest person in the world right this second? Elon Musk, probably. Check tomorrow, though.
Last week I spent twenty minutes at the self-checkout trying to decide if I could afford the nice pasta or should stick with the cheap stuff. those same twenty minutes, Musk’s wealth probably changed by a few billion either way.
Not bitter about it. Well, maybe a bit.
The point is, these rankings change faster than London weather. Someone’s on top, then they’re not, then they are again. It’s like watching really boring tennis played with incomprehensible amounts of money.
My mate Mike got properly excited when he found a tenner in his jacket pocket last month. That’s our version of wealth fluctuations. Theirs involves more zeros than my phone calculator can display.
Different lives, different problems. They’re worrying about which superyacht to buy. I’m worried about whether Tesco’s meal deal prices went up again.
That’s it, really. That’s the answer. Someone’s got more money than God, and the rest of us are just along for the ride.
