Bill Gate led the Bloomberg Billionaires Index 10 years ago with a net worth of $84 billion — which is a fraction of Musk’s estimated wealth in 2026

From left: Elon Musk, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.Credit : Getty(3)

As the internet’s recent fixation on 2016 has reminded many, a lot can change in a decade — for the average person and the ultra-rich alike, though in very different ways.

According to Business Insider, citing data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the total net worth of the top 10 billionaires at the end of 2015 was a combined $559 billion.

While that may sound impressive, it’s less than the estimated individual net worth for Elon Musk so far this year, which was $681 billion as of Sunday, Jan. 18.

Musk’s wealth is also $400 billion ahead of Google’s Larry Page, who is at No. 2 on the list.

The Tesla leader and SpaceX founder — who also owns X — didn’t even appear on the Bloomberg index’s top 10 list in 2016. Instead, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates led the group then, with a total net worth of $84 billion.

Rounding out the top 10 billionaires in 2016 after Gates were Inditex’s Amancio Ortega at $73 billion; Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett at $63 billion; Amazon’s Jeff Bezos at $59 billion; America Movil’s Carlos Slim at $53 billion; Koch Inc.’s David and Charles Koch at $50 billion each; Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg at $46 billion; Page at $40 billion; and Oracle’s Larry Ellison at $40 billion.

Ten years later, only five names from that list remain on the index’s top 10.

Page is at No. 2, with a net worth of $282 billion; Bezos is at No. 4, with $261 billion; Ellison is No. 5, with $244 billion; Zuckerberg is No. 6, with $220 billion; and Buffett is at No. 10, with $149 billion.

Combined, the net worth of those five entrepreneurs is more than double the entire top 10 from 2016 — a reflection of how much more wealthy the very wealthy have become.

Outside of the top 10, Ortega now stands at No. 15, with $134 billion.

Following him is Slim at No. 16, with $114 billion; Gates at No. 17, with $106 billion; Julie Flesher Koch, the widow of David Koch, at No. 21, with $79.8 billion; and Charles Koch at No. 24, with $71.6 billion.

Musk, a colorful and controversial figure, recently said he believes retirement savings won’t be relevant soon thanks to advancements in so-called artificial intelligence.

Speaking on an episode of the Moonshots podcast, he claimed there will be no need to “worry about, like, squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years” because it “won’t matter.”

“You won’t need to save for retirement,” said Musk, adding that “in the relatively near future, you could have whatever you want.”