Billionaire Wealth: The Biggest Winners (& Losers) In 2023
In early February, Mark Zuckerberg added $28 billion to his wealth in a matter of hours as Meta’s shares soared after the company announced its first dividend payout.
This follows a banner year for the Facebook founder, who saw his wealth surge 173% in 2023. Like Zuckerberg, many tech billionaires added huge sums to their wealth as the stock market rebounded.
Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld shows in the following graphic from Preyash Shah, the biggest winners and losers in billionaire wealth in 2023...
The Top Risers and Fallers
Below, we rank the world’s top 50 billionaires by their net change in wealth:
Adding $113.5 billion to his fortune, Elon Musk saw the biggest gains across the group as Tesla shares doubled in price in 2023.
This marks a sharp reversal from the previous year, when Musk lost more money than any other billionaire. In a record year, Tesla delivered 1.8 million vehicles—a 38% year-over-year increase.
Mark Zuckerberg, with the second-highest gains, raked in $78.3 billion as Meta’s shares skyrocketed. Last year, Facebook saw 5 million new users in North America. Adding to this, users’ time spent on Instagram has increased 40% since mid-2020 when Reels was launched.
As the fastest riser across the top 50, Indonesia’s energy billionaire Prajogo Pangestu saw his wealth climb an incredible 971%. The majority of gains were driven from Barito Renewables, his geothermal power company, going public in October 2023.
By contrast, India’s Gautam Adani saw the steepest decline in wealth. After a Hindenburg report accused the Adani Group of operating several shell companies to manipulate stock prices and launder money, Adani saw his wealth decline by $56.5 billion, cutting it by almost half.
Along with Adani, Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance—known for its social media app TikTok—lost $6.1 billion while major Republican donor Charles Koch lost $3.8 billion over the year.
Rapidly Changing Wealth
So far, the U.S. stock market has hit record highs in 2024, boosting the fortunes of many of the world’s billionaires.
In fact, Meta recently added $196 billion to its market cap in one day, the biggest gain in the history of Wall Street. Year-to-date, Zuckerberg’s wealth has increased by $38.2 billion as of February 5. Additionally, Jeff Bezos has added $18 billion to his net worth in just over a month as Amazon shares have jumped nearly 14%.
In 2024, Warren Buffett’s net worth has already climbed by $9.9 billion.
Other billionaires have not fared as well, in particular Elon Musk, whose wealth has plummeted $55.8 billion after issuing recalls for 3.8 million vehicles. Tesla’s shares have slumped 27% year-to-date given production headwinds and a host of other setbacks, including legal troubles and increasing competition in the electric vehicle market.