AI makes rich people richer

Meta in November launched a ‘pay or consent’ system — a model that has faced several challenges – Copyright AFP/File ETIENNE LAURENT

Tech giants including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang have played major roles in the AI revolution, using their resources to create technologies that have completely changed how we work and live. From machine learning and self-driving cars to generative AI.

While innovative, these technologies have brought hundreds of billions of dollars of profit to tech moguls and the companies behind them.

According to data presented by AltIndex.com (and provided to Digital Journal), the world’s eight richest AI billionaires have increased their wealth by $390 billion in the last year.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Net Worth Surged by $112 billion in a year, Jeff Bezos and Jensen Huang Follow with $80 billion and $56 billion gains.

Although the world’s richest AI billionaires already had an impressive net worth, the AI renaissance, which started last year, helped them grow their wealth even more. Since the beginning of 2023, all these technology titans have added tens of billions of dollars to their fortunes, but none is close to Zuckerberg.

His company uses AI algorithms to optimize personalized content, user engagement and advertising, and has also heavily invested in virtual reality experiences in the Metaverse. According to Forbes’ real-time billionaire list, Zuckerberg’s wealth soared by $112.6 billion year-over-year, the biggest increase among top AI billionaires. Facebook shares skyrocketed by 125% in this period, pushing its CEO’s fortune to $177 billion.

Jeff Bezos follows Zuckerberg with an $80 billion net worth increase in the past year. Although Amazon’s owner made his name in e-commerce, Bezos is also a huge name in the AI field. Amazon Web Services, a massive part of his empire, offers a wide range of AI tools and services, helping businesses integrate AI into their operations. However, Bezos diversified his AI influence by investing in AI startup Perplexity, which aims to challenge Google’s dominance in the search engine space. Last year, Bezos was worth $114 billion; now, his net worth is $194 billion.

Statistics show that the CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, has seen the third-largest net worth growth among the top AI billionaires, adding almost $56 billion to his fortune in the last year. His company has become a huge name in the AI field, with its graphic processing units used in everything from large data operations to self-driving cars. Nvidia’s stock value has soared by more than $1.8 trillion since January 2023, helping its CEO’s wealth to hit $77 billion.

Google co-founders and major investors in AI company DeepMind, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, have both added around $34 billion to their wealth in the past year, just like Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Bill Gates, also a huge name in the AI field, is now worth $128 billion, $24 billion more than a year ago.