America’s 15 richest billionaires got $1 trillion richer as the affordability crisis became a top concern in 2025

For many Americans, 2025 wasn’t a great year financially. The affordability crisis and general economic concerns became defining themes of the year as people dealt with rising costs and a worsening job market. 

But for billionaires, 2025 was a boon to their already exuberant wealth. 

The 15 richest billionaires in the United States saw their wealth grow by more than $1 trillion over the course of the year, according to a new analysis from the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank. 

As of the end of 2025, those 15 billionaires—each with assets over $100 billion—have a combined wealth of $3.2 trillion, up from $2.4 trillion a year ago.

That’s a gain of 33%, which is more than double the growth of the S&P 500 in the same time period, the Institute for Policy Studies notes. Over 2025, the S&P 500 rose 16%. (A double-digit gain is strong, but it is down from recent years; the S&P 500 returned 23% in 2024, and 24% in 2023.)

How the wealth of the top 5 richest billionaires has changed

Not only did billionaires get richer in 2025, but more Americans became billionaires. At the end of 2024, there were 813 billionaires in the U.S., according to an Institute for Policy Studies analysis of Forbes data. Those billionaires had a combined wealth of $6.72 trillion. 

By the end of 2025, there were 935 billionaires in the U.S., and their combined wealth totaled $8.1 trillion. 

When Forbes first began tracking the 400 wealthiest Americans in 1982, there were just 13 billionaires on the list. 

The top five wealthiest billionaires have changed over the last year, too. At the beginning of 2025, the top wealthiest billionaires were Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google cofounder Larry Page. 

This year, Zuckerberg was bumped off that list, and Google cofounder Sergey Brin joined its ranks; 2025 was the best year for Google’s stock since 2009, with shares growing 65%, buoyed in part by the tech giant’s push into artificial intelligence.

In contrast, the stock price for Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms grew about 13%. Though Meta also focused on AI, its strategy was more “scattershot,” experts have said, leading to internal confusion and the tech company falling behind other AI leaders. 

In its analysis, the Institute for Policy Studies broke down the current top five billionaires, and how their wealth increased from January 1, 2025, to January 1, 2026. They are:

• Elon Musk of Tesla, X, and SpaceX: worth $726 billion, up from $421 billion a year ago
• Larry Page of Google: worth $257 billion, up from $156 billion a year ago
• Larry Ellison of Oracle: worth $245.billion, up from $209 billion a year ago 
• Jeff Bezos of Amazon: worth $242.billion, up from $233.5 billion a year ago
• Sergey Brin of Google: worth $237 billion, up from $148.9 billion a year ago

The rich got even richer all around the world. According to a Bloomberg analysis, global billionaire wealth increased $2.2 trillion. (That analysis was released several days before December 31.)

An affordability crisis for average Americans

This stark increase in wealth among the already wealthy comes as many Americans are struggling with affordability. Nearly half of Americans surveyed in a November 2025 Politico poll said they find it difficult to afford groceries, utility bills, healthcare, housing, and transportation. 

Last year was filled with stories about grocery prices increasing, utility bills skyrocketing, and healthcare premiums surging ahead of the expiration of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies.

This crisis is expected to get even worse, experts say, as cuts to programs like Medicaid and food stamps will take effect in 2026. Those cuts are part of President Trump’s budget bill, which he called the “Big Beautiful Bill” and signed into law 2025. 

The cost-of-living crisis has led to a new public focus on both affordability and wealth inequality. That was seen in the election victory of Zohran Mamdani, who was sworn in as New York City mayor on January 1.

Mamdani campaigned on making New York more affordable, and received notable support from public figures including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, both of whom have frequently criticized billionaires.

More everyday Americans seem to be paying attention to inequality and criticizing billionaires, too. In a 2025 Harris Poll, nearly three-quarters of Americans said wealth inequality is a serious national issue, and 67% said billionaires are “creating more of an unfair society.”