If you’re checking your bank balance and feeling a little light, maybe don't look at the top of the Forbes list right now. Honestly, the numbers have become so large they barely feel like money anymore. They feel like high scores in a video game that most of us aren't playing.
Right now, Elon Musk is the richest person in United States of America.
It isn't even close. While the "silver medal" for the wealthiest American tends to swap between tech founders like a game of musical chairs, Musk has pulled into a lead that feels almost permanent—at least for this week. As of mid-January 2026, his net worth is hovering somewhere between $715 billion and $750 billion, depending on which tracker you trust more, Forbes or Bloomberg.
The Richest Person in United States of America: Why Musk Is Winning
You might remember a time when being worth $100 billion was the ultimate "you made it" moment. Those days are gone. Musk’s wealth has basically tripled since the early 2020s.
So, what happened?
✨ Don't miss: Rough Tax Return Calculator: How to Estimate Your Refund Without Losing Your Mind
SpaceX. That’s the big one. While everyone focuses on the drama over at X (formerly Twitter) or the price of a Tesla Model 3, it’s the rockets that are making him "richest person in the world" wealthy. SpaceX was recently valued at a staggering $1.5 trillion. Because Musk owns about 40% of the company, every time a Starship launch succeeds or Starlink adds a few million more subscribers in rural parts of the world, his net worth jumps by the size of a small country's GDP.
Then there’s the Tesla factor. Even though the EV market has seen some wild swings and more competition from China, Musk recently had a massive 2018 pay package reinstated by the courts. That added tens of billions back onto his personal balance sheet in an instant. It’s the kind of wealth that makes the old "robber barons" of the 1900s look like they were running a lemonade stand.
The Rest of the Top Five
It’s lonely at the top, but there’s plenty of company just a few steps down. The names haven't changed much, but the order is a mess.
- Larry Page: The Google co-founder is currently holding the #2 spot in the U.S. with about $270 billion. Why? Because AI. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has seen its stock price go vertical as they integrate Gemini into basically everything we touch online.
- Jeff Bezos: The Amazon founder is usually in the top two, but he’s sitting around $250 billion lately. He’s been selling off chunks of Amazon stock to fund Blue Origin, his own space company. Even with the sales, Amazon’s dominance in cloud computing (AWS) keeps him firmly in the "quarter-trillionaire" club.
- Larry Ellison: The Oracle founder is 81 years old and still gaining wealth faster than most 20-somethings. He’s worth about $240 billion. Oracle’s pivot to cloud infrastructure and AI data centers has been a massive win for him. Plus, he owns almost the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai, which is a nice flex.
- Mark Zuckerberg: After a rough 2022, "Zuck" had a legendary comeback. Meta’s focus on "efficiency" and AI-driven ads pushed his wealth back up to roughly $225 billion.
What Most People Get Wrong About This Wealth
There is a huge misconception that these guys have this money sitting in a Chase savings account. They don't.
🔗 Read more: Replacement Walk In Cooler Doors: What Most People Get Wrong About Efficiency
If Elon Musk tried to spend $700 billion tomorrow, he couldn't. This wealth is "on paper." It’s tied up in shares of Tesla, SpaceX, and Boring Company. If he started selling those shares in bulk, the market would panic, the stock price would crater, and his net worth would evaporate faster than you can say "margin call."
It's also worth noting the gap between the "builders" and the "inheritors." While the tech guys dominate the top five, the Walton family (the heirs to the Walmart fortune) are still lurking. Collectively, the family is worth nearly $475 billion. If they were one person, they’d be the only ones capable of giving Musk a run for his money. But because that wealth is split between several siblings and cousins, they usually appear lower down on the individual rankings.
Why It Matters to You
You might ask why we care who the richest person in United States of America is. It’s not just celebrity gossip.
These individuals have more "dry powder" (investable cash) than many sovereign nations. When Jensen Huang (Nvidia CEO, worth about $160 billion) decides to invest in a specific type of chip, the entire global supply chain shifts. When Musk decides to buy a social media platform, the way half the world communicates changes overnight.
💡 You might also like: Share Market Today Closed: Why the Benchmarks Slipped and What You Should Do Now
This is "influence wealth." It’s the ability to shape the future of energy, space travel, and artificial intelligence according to a single person's vision.
How to Track This Yourself
If you want to keep tabs on who is the richest person in United States of America, don't rely on annual lists. They are outdated the second they are printed.
- Forbes Real-Time Billionaires: This is the gold standard. It updates every few minutes while the stock market is open.
- Bloomberg Billionaires Index: This one is a bit more conservative and often values private companies like SpaceX or Bloomberg LP differently than Forbes does.
- SEC Filings: If you’re a real nerd for this stuff, you can track "Form 4" filings. These are public records that show whenever a billionaire sells or buys shares in their own company.
Actionable Insights for the Non-Billionaire
While we aren't all going to found the next Amazon, there are a few things we can learn from how these people stay at the top:
- Equity is King: None of these people got rich through a salary. They got rich by owning a piece of a growing pie. Whether it's a 401k or a small business, ownership is the only real path to significant wealth.
- Bet on Trends, Not Hype: The people at the top right now (Musk, Huang, Page) all bet on AI and automation years before it was a "cool" buzzword.
- Diversification is for Protection, Concentration is for Growth: Most of these billionaires have their wealth concentrated in one or two companies. It’s risky, but it’s how they reached the stratosphere. For the rest of us, sticking to diversified index funds is safer, but it’s interesting to see the "all-in" mentality that creates the top 0.0001%.
The list will probably change by the time you finish your coffee. A 5% drop in Tesla stock or a 10% surge in Amazon could flip the rankings entirely. But for now, the title remains firmly in the hands of the man trying to get us to Mars.
To see the current state of play, your best bet is to check the real-time tickers during market hours. You can search for the "Forbes Real-Time Billionaires" page to see the exact dollar amount Musk or Bezos holds at this very second.