The fortunes of the 10 richest people in the world rocketed by $63.5 billion on Wednesday after Donald Trump’s history-making election win, according to a report.
The colossal boost to the fortunes of the already mind-blowingly wealthy was fueled by rising U.S. stocks, according to Bloomberg, with traders betting on cuts to taxes and regulations in Trump’s second administration. No one fared better than Trump’s top cheerleader Elon Musk, who added an estimated $26.5 billion to his net worth as Tesla shares surged by 15 percent.
ADVERTISEMENT
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, also saw his fortune climb by more than $7 billion, putting his total net worth at $228 billion—second only to Musk’s $290 billion pile. Bezos, who was slammed by his own Washington Post journalists for preventing the newspaper endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in the election, quickly congratulated Trump on his “extraordinary political comeback.”
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison was also among the big winners—with his fortune now at an estimated $193 billion—while Bill Gates also saw an increase of almost $2 billion. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth remained more or less unchanged at $202 billion.
Some of the other top-gaining billionaires outside the world’s top 10 were crypto entrepreneurs.
As Trump’s victory supercharged the value of Bitcoin to an all-time high over $76,000, crypto exchange bosses including Brian Armstrong—the co-founder of Coinbase—saw his net worth increase 30 percent to $11 billion, while Binance founder Changpeng Zhao’s net worth climbed to $52.7 billion thanks to a $12.1 billion post-election bump, according to Bloomberg.
The Daily Beast Podcast episodes are released every Thursday. Like and download on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. And click here for email updates as each new episode drops.