AI created 50 new billionaires in 2025, startup investment pulled in more than $200 billion

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Jensen Huang are among the biggest beneficieries

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In context: The middle classes may be facing a depressed job market, high inflation, and a broader cost-of-living crisis, but the wealthiest one percent have never had it so good. The AI-driven stock market boom reportedly added more than $500 billion to the wealth of America's richest tech titans in 2025 and created over 50 new billionaires worldwide.

According to Forbes, most of the new AI billionaires are either founders or senior executives of SaaS companies, foundation model firms, or businesses focused on replacing human workers with AI software in the service and manufacturing sectors.

Among the notable additions to the billionaire club are former Facebook executive Bret Taylor and former Google executive Clay Bavor. Their AI startup, Sierra, raised $350 million earlier this year. At CES 2026, the duo is expected to showcase conversational AI agents designed to replace human customer service representatives for companies such as Rivian and The North Face.

The three youngest members of the billionaire list are Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha, who founded the recruiting firm Mercor. The list also includes Liang Wenfeng, the founder of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, with an estimated net worth of around $11.5 billion.

As AI has become the dominant tech buzzword over the past few years, the sector has seen a massive influx of capital from both institutional and private investors. According to Forbes, $202.3 billion was invested in AI startups in 2025, about 75 percent more than the $114 billion that flowed into AI-related firms last year.

A large share of that funding went to foundation model companies, which have raised $80 billion so far in 2025, accounting for roughly 40 percent of global AI investment. Two of the largest players in the space, OpenAI and Anthropic, together captured 14 percent of all global venture investment in AI this year.

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Among the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom are Elon Musk, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, and Jensen Huang, all of whom saw their net worth surge in 2025. Musk, already the world's richest person, recorded an almost 50 percent jump in net worth to $645 billion, making him the first person in history to surpass $500 billion in personal wealth.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's net worth rose by $41.8 billion to $159 billion as the company's valuation crossed $5 trillion, driven by growing demand for AI accelerators in data centers. Google co-founder Larry Page and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also saw substantial gains, with their net worth climbing to $270 billion and $255 billion, respectively.