The global financial landscape is undergoing major upheaval. According to the latest figures from Forbes , the five richest men on the planet now have a combined net worth of $2.6 trillion . Between breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and stock market volatility, January was marked by an unprecedented reshuffling of positions at the top of the pyramid.

Elon Musk: Reaching new heights

Elon Musk is no longer content with simply topping the rankings; he is redefining the scales of wealth. With a gain of $48 billion in a single month, his fortune is driven by two main factors:

1. xAI: His artificial intelligence company, valued at $250 billion after a massive fundraising round.
2. SpaceX: A valuation that continues to climb, more than offsetting revenue fluctuations at Tesla.

AI, the new catalyst for fortune

The ranking confirms the definitive shift of the global economy towards digital. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin now occupy second and third place thanks to Alphabet's performance (+8%). They are ahead of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg , thus completing an exclusively American and tech-focused top five.

The observation: Traditional industrial sectors are fading in the face of data infrastructure and generative AI.

The World Top 5 (February 2026)

Rank	Name	Estimated fortune	Country	Key sector
1	Elon Musk	~$850 billion	USA	Tesla, SpaceX, xAI
2	Larry Page	$277 billion	USA	Alphabet (Google)
3	Sergey Brin	$255 billion	USA	Alphabet (Google)
4	Jeff Bezos	$250 billion	USA	Amazon
5	Mark Zuckerberg	$246 billion	USA	Meta

A club that is becoming less and less diverse

Analysis of this ranking reveals a striking geographical and sectoral concentration:

1. US Hegemony: Only two non-Americans manage to stay in the Top 10: Bernard Arnault (LVMH), who falls to 7th place ($166 billion) following the slowdown in luxury, and Amancio Ortega (Inditex), who rejoins the ranks with $145 billion.
2. Stock market corrections: Larry Ellison (Oracle) leaves the Top 5 to rank 6th ($210 billion), while Jensen Huang (NVIDIA) remains in ambush with $160 billion.

This hierarchy, increasingly dependent on tech stock market valuations, underlines the fragility — or the disproportionate power — of the new software empires in the face of the real economy.