The world’s billionaire class swelled to a record 3,302 people in the year ended in April, up 13% from the year before, as wealth at the very top climbed faster than the rest of the global balance sheet. Average billionaire wealth rose 25% in the same period, a surge that put the richest names on the planet even further ahead.
The number lands at a moment when readers are seeing fresh evidence that the millionaire club is also expanding fast. UBS found the global millionaire population climbed to more than 57.5 million last year, including more than 440,000 people in the US who crossed the mark for the first time and more than 43,000 in the UK. That makes the latest wealth tally more than a vanity metric: it is a snapshot of how quickly asset values have been compounding for people who already owned the most.
James Mazeau, who helped present the figures, tied much of the jump to equity markets and the AI boom. He said most billionaire wealth is linked to listed companies, which means stock prices can move fortunes with unusual speed. In his view, the rally in AI-linked shares has been doing exactly that, especially in countries where more people own stocks directly or through funds. UBS also said average personal wealth around the world rose 10.8% in the year ended in April, while the dollar-based millionaire count was helped by a relatively weak greenback last year. A weaker dollar can make assets outside the US look more valuable when converted into US dollars, adding another lift to the tally.
The biggest fortunes remain concentrated in a narrow band. UBS found 18 people with wealth between $50bn and $100bn and 19 worth more than $100bn, with 15 of the people above $50bn based in the US. That concentration matters because it shows how little the global wealth boom has been spread around. Elon Musk remains the richest person in the world with a net worth of $1tn on the Forbes rich list, while the Hinduja family was ranked by The Sunday Times as the richest in the UK with £35bn. In the UK, there were 156 UK-based billionaires in 2025, down from 165 the year before.
Paul Donovan offered the caution that sits underneath all the celebration over rising fortunes. Reports of the rich fleeing Britain are often overstated, he said, adding that some eventually go back and that the businesses they own do not necessarily leave with them. His point cuts against the easy political story that wealthy people are simply vanishing when taxes rise. The money can move on paper; the economic activity often stays put.
For now, the hard numbers say the super-rich are still pulling away. The unresolved question is not whether wealth at the top is rising — it clearly is — but how much of that rise is tied to stock markets and a weaker dollar, and how much reflects a deeper shift in who is capturing the gains from the current cycle. The next update will show whether this year’s surge was a peak or the start of a still larger rerating of global wealth.
