The UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report, now in its 10th year, reveals significant trends in billionaire wealth. Over the past decade, billionaires' wealth grew by 121%, reaching $14 trillion, outpacing global equity markets.
The number of billionaires rose to 2,682, with the US seeing the greatest wealth gains, particularly in tech and industrial sectors. Chinese billionaire wealth grew sharply until 2020 but has since declined.
The report tracks the wealth of more than 2,500 billionaires across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, focusing on the last 10 years. From 2015 to 2020, billionaire wealth grew globally at an annual rate of 10%.
Since 2020, growth has stalled at 1%. But that number masks continued expansion in the US, EMEA and parts of Asia, most notably India.
Tech billionaires saw the fastest wealth growth. While regional differences have emerged in the past 10 years, tech entrepreneurs have played a steadily increasing role across the global economy.
That has resulted in tech billionaires’ wealth growing the fastest of any sector, tripling from $788.9 billion in 2015 to $2.4 trillion in 2024.
In earlier years, the new billionaires commercialized e-commerce, social media and digital payments; more recently they engineered the generative AI boom, while also developing cybersecurity, fintech, 3D printing and robotics.
Industrials billionaires increased their wealth from $480.4 billion to $1.3 trillion as nations invested to sharpen their competitive edge, especially in the green economy, to deal with demographic challenges and to support the economic trend of reshoring.
Industrial policy interventions are benefiting technologically advanced businesses like aerospace, defense and electric vehicles.
The sector lagging all others is real estate. Real-estate billionaires performed in line with the broad universe until 2017 but have lagged since then, possibly due to a combination of China’s property correction, the Covid-19-induced upheaval in parts of commercial real estate and higher US and European interest rates.
Billionaires are relocating more frequently, with 176 moving countries since 2020, drawn to regions like Switzerland, the UAE, and the US.
Regional trends include strong growth in US and Indian billionaire wealth, while Chinese wealth declined. In EMEA, Switzerland and the UAE saw significant increases.
The year’s new billionaires were mainly self-made. People becoming billionaires for the first time numbered 268, with 60% of them entrepreneurs. That reverses the position in last year’s report when most new billionaires were multi-generational billionaires inheriting money.
As the great wealth transition gains momentum, though, the proportion of multigenerational billionaires is forecasted to increase.
Looking ahead, billionaires face geopolitical and fiscal challenges, with technology and renewables expected to drive future wealth creation. Family wealth planning is evolving, as an estimated $6.3 trillion will be passed down over the next 15 years.
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