The world's wealthiest people have got at least $150 billion richer thanks to the AI-fueled stock-market boom
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- AI-related stocks have seen a spectacular surge in 2023, following ChatGPT's smashing debut.
- Some of the world's wealthiest people have made a killing from the rally.
- Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Oracle boss Larry Ellison have seen their personal fortunes swell by over $40 billion each.
Artificial intelligence has been one of the defining themes for stocks in 2023 – and it's also helping the rich get richer.
The surge in interest in the intelligent language tool ChatGPT quickly spread across markets, with big-name investors rushing to snap up shares in companies they believe could power AI's rise to prominence.
Big Tech giants like Meta Platforms and Nvidia have already racked up triple-digit gains thanks to the AI boom, while Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, and Oracle have also all surged.
That's helped the companies' founders – already among the world's richest people at the start of 2023 – to become even wealthier.
Meta shares have rallied 134% year-to-date thanks to both the rise of AI and Zuckerberg's so-called "year of efficiency" cost cuts, and that's lifted the Facebook founder's wealth by over $57 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Meanwhile, Oracle founder Larry Ellison passed Bill Gates on the publication's rich list for the first time ever earlier this week, with his fortune up $47 billion in 2023 thanks to the tech stock's 55% gain.
Gates himself has gotten $24 billion richer this year thanks to his Microsoft shares, with the Redmond-based tech giant emerging as a preferred AI play for billionaire investors including Stanley Druckenmiller.
And the man at the helm of one of the stock market's biggest success story of 2023 – Nvidia founder Jensen Huang – has also seen his personal fortune balloon by $24 billion, according to Bloomberg's index.
Again, that's largely thanks to Huang's shares in the chipmaker, which have jumped 192% in value to lift the company to a $1 trillion market capitalization.
The members of the rich list have seen their combined wealth jump by over $150 billion in 2023, by Insider's calculations.