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Artificial intelligence has propelled a $1 trillion increase in tech moguls’ combined net worth since 2025, minting new billionaires at a rate never seen before.
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Against this backdrop,  BestBrokers has released a new report identifying the billionaires whose fortunes have grown the fastest between July 2025 and July 2026.
For this report, the team at BestBrokers analysed the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List for 2025 and 2026, using the Wayback Machine to compare billionaire fortunes year on year.
BestBrokers calculated both absolute and percentage changes in net worth, as well as average daily gains and losses, and examined the countries and industries with the highest and lowest combined billionaire wealth. The full dataset is available on Google Drive via this link.
DeepSeek founder and Anthropic’s founders grew exceptionally rich
Data shows that DeepSeek founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng recorded the largest percentage increase in net worth among all billionaires on the Forbes list, with his estimated fortune soaring from $1 billion in late July 2025 to $39.5 billion by 27 July 2026, a 39-fold increase. Anthropic’s founders also grew exceptionally rich within the past year, multiplying their fortunes nearly 13-fold.
At the other end of the ranking, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison suffered the largest decline, with his estimated net worth falling from $290.6 billion in July 2025 to $151.9 billion in July 2026, a loss of $138.7 billion and a near-halving of his fortune.
Other highlights
- Liang Wenfen, DeepSeek’s founder and CEO, recorded the fastest one-year percentage increase in net worth among all billionaires on the Forbes list, with his fortune soaring 3,850%, from $1 billion to $39.5 billion in just 12 months. The surge follows DeepSeek’s rapid rise from a relatively obscure Chinese AI lab to one of the sector’s most promising companies.
- The seven Anthropic founders saw their fortunes grow nearly 13-fold in one year: Tom Brown, Jack Clark, Sam McCandlish, Jared Kaplan, Daniela Amodei, Dario Amodei and Christopher Olah each saw their net worth rise 1,191.7%, from $1.2 billion to $15.5 billion. The company’s valuation climbed to $965 billion, surpassing ChatGPT creator OpenAI to become the world’s most valuable AI startup.
Fastest-growing fortunes beyond AI
- Fastest-growing fortunes beyond AI: Chobani CEO and founder Hamdi Ulukaya saw his fortune rise 443.48% after a $650 million investment valued the Greek yoghurt maker at around $20 billion in October 2025. Metal-processing entrepreneur Yuan Fugen gained 411.76% as shares in Suzhou Dongshan Precision Manufacturing rose sharply on strong demand for its optical communications products used in AI infrastructure. Vicor founder Patrizio Vinciarelli increased his fortune by 350% as the power-component maker’s shares surged amid growing demand for power systems used in AI data centres.
Steepest net worth decline over the past year
- Larry Ellison suffered the steepest net worth decline over the past year. Oracle co-founder, chairman and chief technology officer Larry Ellison saw his estimated net worth fall from $290.60 billion to $151.90 billion between July 2025 and July 2026, a decline of $138.70 billion, or 47.73%. Ellison’s fortune comes from his 40% stake in Oracle, whose shares fell sharply in 2026 after investors raised concerns over the scale of its AI infrastructure spending and the debt required to fund its data-centre expansion, reversing much of the stock’s earlier gains on AI-driven cloud demand.
- As of 27 July, 2026, there were 3,356 billionaires around the world with a combined net worth of $19.6 trillion. The United States has the world’s largest billionaire population, with 990 individuals collectively worth $8.43 trillion, while China ranks second with 511 billionaires ($2.06 trillion), followed by India (223 individuals worth $1.01 trillion), and Germany (171 billionaires worth $944.8 billion). Brazil has the largest billionaire population in South America, with 71 billionaires worth $291.9 billion.
Billionaires by country
AI creating billionaires at a pace with no real precedent
‘AI isn’t just transforming markets; it is creating billionaires at a pace with no real precedent. The fortunes behind DeepSeek and Anthropic show founders going from barely billionaires to tens of billions in a matter of months. What’s most striking is that this wealth creation is no longer confined to AI model makers themselves; it’s rippling into the infrastructure, components, and even non-tech industries that support the boom.’
– comments Paul Hoffman from BestBrokers.com.
The analysis is based on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List as of 27 July 2026, with historical figures retrieved through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. We compared the estimated net worth of the same billionaires on 27 July 2025 and 27 July 2026 to calculate one-year percentage changes in their fortunes.
The full report includes the biggest absolute and percentage wealth gains and losses, as well as a breakdown of billionaire wealth by country and industry. The raw dataset is also available here.
