These ultra-wealthy have already made big gains in 2024, and the Tesla CEO’s top spot is far from secure

Elon Musk looking back over his shoulder, wearing a fancy tux

One day in late January, Elon Musk was not the world’s richest person. LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault had once again surpassed the Tesla and SpaceX chief — though by the next day, the two had swapped spots again.

By all accounts, the two billionaires are still extremely rich. Still, we rounded up the world’s richest people to look at who’s made the biggest gains this year, who’s most likely to keep Musk on his toes — and who wears the best hats.

Jeff Bezos wearing a cowboy hat and Blue Origin space suit, holding up goggles to his eyes

Goggles by Amelia Earhart. Cowboy hat is the model’s own.

Photo: Joe Skipper (Reuters)

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s net worth has grown by $9.39 billion in 2024 as of Jan. 29. This puts him only $18 billion away from his Big Tech rival, who has lost $25 billion in the same time period as Tesla’s market value has plummeted.

Plus, we can’t find any photos of Elon Musk in a cowboy hat, which is a worrying sign.

Bernard Arnault in a suit, at a microphone, in front of a screen, smiling

A hatless Bernard Arnault at a shareholders meeting in Paris in 2023.

Photo: Gonzalo Fuentes (Reuters)

The day after his brief moment in the sun, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault dropped down to the third spot. Arnault is used to this merry-go-round (perhaps it is where he lost his cowboy hat?)—and has already added $4.24 billion to his net worth this year. It’s unlikely Elon has seen the last of him.

Bill Gates

Bill Gates having a doctors hat put on his head by another man in a hat

Receiving the hat chosen for him by the World’s Richest Person Society, or that’s how we prefer to think of it, anyway.

Photo: Jack Mikrut (Getty Images)

Bill Gates is currently fourth on the list, but his net worth has only grown by $3.93 billion.

That puts him pretty far down on the growth rate list, but he was high up enough when he started 2024 to make him still a contender. Plus, we did find him wearing a cowboy hat in exactly one picture, so he’s got what it takes.

Gautam Adani at a conference table, wearing a suit and yawning

Sporting not a hat but a yawn, at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Gandhinagar, 2019.

Photo: Hindustan Times (Getty Images)

Asia’s richest people—and biggest rivals—are involved in their own constant flip-flop.

Gautam Adani (#14 on the world’s richest list) and Mukesh Ambani (#11) have made $11.6 billion and $11.3 billion, respectively, already this year. They may be a lot farther down on the list than some of the others we mention here, but at this rate, one could argue that Elon could have to worry more about Asia’s most contentious billionaires than anybody else in the world. Anybody, that is, except for…

Mark Zuckerberg in full academic regalia

Zuck wearing the hat of learning (he’s an honorary Doctor of Laws at Harvard, from which he famously dropped out after starting Facebook).

Photo: Brian Snyder (Reuters)

The only person on the Jan. 29 list who has gained more in 2024 than Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Though fifth on the world’s richest person list, Zuckerberg has added a whopping $16.5 billion to his net worth this year already.

He’d still need $59 billion to surpass Musk, but as Elon has lost $25 billion in January already, that could, technically, only take a couple other good months (or bad months, depending on who you’re rooting for).

Zuck’s got a lot of luck on his side, too—the Facebook wunderkind dropped out of Harvard and still managed to nab the hat. Who knows what’s in store.

Who needs hats when you have jackets?

Photo: Rick Wilking (Reuters)

Hats aren’t Jensen Huang’s style. The Nvidia CEO is famous for black leather jackets—which the New York Times has gone so far as to call the symbol of the AI paradigm shift. Huang didn’t exactly invent the look, but he has changed the semiconductor game. And some of his biggest customers are the other people on this list.

But those customers are trying to cut their costs by investing in their own chip tech, raising questions about Nvidia’s long-term revenue growth. So Elon Musk is wise to keep an eye on Jensen Huang for now (his net worth has grown spectacularly this year—$11.2 billion by Jan. 29), but he’s still only at #23 on the list. It’s likely that black leather jacket will stay in the rearview mirror in the longterm.

 

Jensen Huang holding up the Titan V chip. He's wearing a black leather jacket.