The 10 Most Popular Industries For Billionaires 2025
The most common route, for the 11th-straight year? Finance and investments. The industry has the most billionaires of all, with 464, or 15% of the list. And they posted another strong annual return, adding 41 new members, and some $400 billion in wealth, since last year. In all, these money masters are worth $2.6 trillion in all. Newcomers include venture capitalist Theresia Gouw (estimated net worth: $1.1 billion), private equity mogul Adebayo Ogunlesi ($2.2 billion) and George Raymond Zage III ($1.2 billion), who took LGBTQ social networking app Grindr public through a blank-check company in 2022. Warren Buffett, the 94-year-old Oracle Of Omaha, is still the sector's richest person by far, with an estimated $154 billion fortune (up $21 billion since last year amid yet another rise in Berkshire Hathaway stock).
Then there's the tech industry, which ranks second, with 401 billionaires, accounting for 13% of this year's list. That includes Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, who is worth an estimated $216 billion (up $39 billion since last year) and ranks as the list's runner-up for the first time ever, trailing only Tesla's Elon Musk ($342 billion), who Forbes classifies as primarily an automotive billionaire. Awash in VC money and investor delirium for all things AI, no group has gotten richer (adding $600 billion) or gained more billionaires (46) than the planet's tech moguls. As a group, they're the wealthiest of all, worth a collective $3.2 trillion. Newcomers include Severin Hacker ($1.1 billion), cofounder and CTO of language learning app Duolingo; Marissa Mayer ($1 billion), the first female engineer at Google and former Yahoo CEO; and the world's youngest self-made billionaire, 28-year-old Scale AI cofounder and CEO Alexandr Wang ($2 billion).
Manufacturing comes in third, with 342 billionaires, accounting for 11% of this year's ranking. The group is worth $1.1 trillion (up $100 million since last year), and the sector's richest person is still Germany's Reinhold Wuerth, with an estimated $35.1 billion fortune from fasteners and screws. No one from the industry gained more than Nigerian cement and sugar mogul Aliko Dangote, who is worth $23.9 billion (up $10.5 billion since last year). Among the sector's 33 newcomers: Chinese vaping mogul Zhang Shengwei ($2.2 billion) and Swiss hearing aid tycoon Hans-Ueli Rihs ($1.8 billion).
Rounding out the top four is fashion and retail, where 297 individuals made their billions, accounting for 10% of this year's list. Altogether, they're worth $2 trillion, up $100 million from last year. That's despite the industry's richest person, LVMH's Bernard Arnault of France ($178 billion), losing $55 billion in wealth amid what his luxury goods giant has called 'a challenging economic and geopolitical environment' for the sector. Even with these headwinds, 16 newcomers from the industry still found their way onto this year's list, including Danny Harris and Marco DeGeorge ($4.7 billion each), the cofounders of clothing brand Alo Yoga; Chinese gold and jewelry mogul Xu Gaoming ($8.2 billion); and Saudi grocery store and mall tycoon Abdullah Al Othaim ($2.5 billion).
Richest: Vagit Alekperov ($28.7 billion), founder of Russian oil giant Lukoil.
Richest: Rupert Murdoch & family ($23 billion), founder and chairman emeritus of News Corp., one of the world's largest media conglomerates.
Richest: Harry Triguboff ($19.1 billion), founder, owner and managing director of Meriton, Australia's largest apartment developer.
Richest: Mukesh Ambani ($92.5 billion), chairman of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, which holds interests in petrochemicals, oil and gas, retail, telecommunications, media and financial services.
Richest: Zhong Shanshan ($57.7 billion), founder and chairman of Chinese bottled water company Nongfu Spring.
Richest: Thomas Frist Jr. & family ($27 billion), cofounder and chairman emeritus HCA Healthcare, which operates the largest hospital network by capacity in the U.S.
Richest: Bernard Arnault & family ($178 billion), chairman and CEO of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH.
Richest: Reinhold Wuerth & family ($35.1 billion), honorary chairman of screw and fastener maker Wuerth Group.
Richest: Mark Zuckerberg ($216 billion), cofounder and CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook).
Richest: Warren Buffett ($154 billion), chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
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