Against the backdrop of most Global stock markets rising in 2024, the wealthiest 500 people in the world have quietly achieved a milestone — a total net worth reaching 10 trillion USD.

According to local media Statistics, a historical high in the wealth of the 'Global 500' occurred on December 11 of this year, reaching a total of 10.1 trillion USD, which then experienced a slight decline after the 'Christmas calamity'. As of Monday (December 30 of last year), the total wealth of this group was 9.8 trillion USD.

Of course, the Matthew effect also applies to the super billionaire group.

Just the wealth of Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, and Mark Zuckerberg alone has increased by 370 billion USD this year. Adding the recently newlywed Larry Ellison, the love-struck Bezos, along with Michael Dell, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin, these eight individuals have seen their wealth increase by 600 billion USD this year, accounting for 43% of the total increase in the '500 rich' this year (1.5 trillion USD).

Super big winners

Since private companies like SpaceX and OpenAI are not included in the 'wealth rankings' statistics, most of the 'super billionaires' familiar to investors are associated with listed companies.

This year's remarkably lively stock market has pushed wealthy individuals' fortunes soaring.$S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$For the second consecutive year, a rise of over 20% has been achieved, mainly influenced by a small group known as the "Seven Giants" Stocks, which account for more than half of the Index performance.

Trump's victory was also an important contributing factor. Within five weeks after the USA elections, the net worth of the "Global 500 Rich" increased by 505 billion dollars. Among them, Musk, who is referred to as Trump's "first friend," saw his fortune surge by over 200 billion dollars this year, with the latest figure standing at 442 billion dollars. On December 17 of this year, the gap between him and the second richest, Bezos, reached 237 billion dollars, marking the largest disparity between the "richest" and "second richest" in history.

Trump's victory also triggered a frenzy in the cryptocurrency sector. After spending four months in prison in the USA, Binance founder Zhao Changpeng saw his net worth increase by 20 billion dollars this year. With a net worth of 55 billion dollars, he ranks among the top 25 in the global rich list.$Coinbase (COIN.US)$The founder and CEO Brian Armstrong also has a net worth exceeding ten billion dollars.

Of course, the winners in the stock market are not limited to the USA. In the Hong Kong stock market, trading is underway.$TENCENT (00700.HK)$The increase this year has reached 43%, $XIAOMI-W (01810.HK)$ the increase has reached 119%; the Star Stocks of the A-share market, Cambrian, has seen an increase of 387% this year, which has also raised the fortunes of Chinese entrepreneurs like Ma Huateng, Lei Jun, and Chen Tianshi.

There are also those who are unsuccessful.

It is evident that not all Stocks are rising; this year there are also cases of wealth shrinking—super-rich individuals are not immune to the cyclical fluctuations.

As one of the rare market benchmarks reporting losses this year, the French stock market, heavily dependent on luxury Trinket magnates, has seen significant losses this year—just the fortunes of Bernard Arnault (LVMH), Françoise Bettencourt Meyers (L'Oréal), and François Pinault (Kering) alone have evaporated 71 billion dollars this year.

There is also one Asian billionaire who directly fell out of the "500 Rich" list—Vietnamese real estate businessman Pham Nhat Vuong. At the beginning of the year, his electric vehicle company VinFast plummeted due to widening losses and a pessimistic market outlook on its aggressive expansion plans. Although there has been some recovery, this drop caused Vuong's personal wealth to evaporate by almost half.

Editor/new