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April was a great month to be a billionaire as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq soared by 9% and 15% respectively. Boosting the fortunes of the world's 10 richest people, all of them Americans, to 2.7 trillion dollars combined as of May 1st at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time. As a group, they're 260 billion dollars richer than they were a month ago. But no one fared better than Google co-founder Larry Page, who became the third person ever worth at least 300 billion dollars on Thursday. Our top 10 richest people in the world list is as of May 1st, 2026 at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time. As a reminder, stock prices fluctuate routinely, so the net worths on our list may change on a daily basis.
Forbes tracks the daily changes on our real-time list of billionaires. Forbes has been keeping track of the world's billionaires since 1987. In March 2026, we found 3,428 of them for our annual list. Larry Page, who ranks as the world's second richest person for the sixth straight month, saw his fortune soar by 76 billion dollars to an estimated 313 billion dollars as shares of Google's parent company Alphabet soared by more than 33% over the past month. Page is still 469 billion dollars poorer than Elon Musk, but he's closed the gap from 580 billion dollars at the start of April.
Musk, whose net worth declined by 35 billion dollars or 4%, to an estimated 782 billion dollars, is the only person in the top 10 whose fortune fell over the past 30 days. That's mostly because Forbes lowered its estimate of Musk's stake in 1.25 trillion dollars SpaceX from 43% to 40% based on an updated corporate filing in Alaska released in April. Page's Google co-founder Sergey Brin was the month's second biggest gainer and climbed from number four to number three richest after seeing his net worth skyrocket by 70 billion dollars to an estimated 289 billion dollars. Brin swapped spots with the third biggest gainer, Jeff Bezos, who fell one spot to number four despite a 49 billion dollar increase in his net worth as Amazon stock jumped by 27%.
Giving him a fortune of 272 billion dollars. The month's fourth biggest gainer was Michael Dell, whose net worth grew by 34 billion dollars to an estimated 177 billion dollars after shares of Dell Technologies and Broadcom, which acquired Dell Technologies spin-off VMware in 2023, climbed by 27% and 35% respectively. Dell rose from number eight to number seven richest and traded ranks with Jensen Huang. Huang is the month's fifth biggest gainer as the Nvidia co-founder is 22 billion dollars richer thanks to a 14% increase in the chip-making giant's stock. Giving him a fortune of 173 billion dollars.
Walmart heir Jim Walton joined the top 10 for the first time in at least three years, climbing two spots to number 10 richest and landing right behind his brother, Rob Walton, who cracked the top 10 last month and held steady this month at number nine. Both Waltons saw their fortunes grow by 7 billion dollars to an estimated 147 and 150 billion dollars respectively as shares of Walmart rose by 6%. Jim Walton replaced Frenchman Bernard Arnault of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, who was the only member of last month's top 10 who dropped out this month.
Arnault slid from number 10 to number 11 richest as his fortune inched down by less than 1 billion dollars to an estimated 142 billion dollars. It's the first time in more than three years that Arnault has fallen outside the top 10 and that the top 10 has only included Americans at the end of the month. Not mentioned so far are number five, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, whose fortune was up 14 billion dollars since last month to 210 billion dollars, and number six, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, whose fortune was up 16 billion
dollars since last month to 205 billion dollars. All of the top 10 richest people as of May 1st are men. Each of them is worth 147 billion dollars or more, up from 142 billion dollars last month. For full coverage and to see the whole list, check out the Forbes wealth team's piece on forbes.com.
