We count 60 people whose fortunes come mainly from artificial intelligence and who are worth more than a billion dollars. For all of them, we research what is publicly known, and then produce calibrated estimates of their net worth.
We also looked into the next 88 most influential people in AI, for 148 total, to see the broader picture across a total of $377B in wealth that came primarily from AI. We calculate and visualize where that wealth comes from, showing wealth concentration, and breaking it down across US vs. China vs. Europe, frontier lab founders vs. other startup founder vs. prominent researchers vs. big tech, and other dimensions.
Contents
- All 60 AI billionaires, ranked
- All 60 AI billionaires, visualized
- Who are the 20 richest people in AI?
- How concentrated is AI wealth amongst individuals?
- Who leads among founders, startup founders, big tech, and researchers?
- Which AI billionaires are from the US, China, and Europe?
- What kind of wealth comprises the $377B of individual AI fortunes?
- How are the 20 largest individual AI fortunes held?
- How long have AI billionaires been working in AI?
- How old are the AI billionaires?
- Do wealthier people in AI have more degrees?
- Methodology
Net worth and source of wealth of all AI billionaires
Estimated personal net worth as of October 16, 2026. The figure is our median estimate; the range is the 80% confidence interval. Pure tech-company chiefs whose wealth is incidental to AI (Jensen Huang, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, all richer than anyone here) are left out.
| # | Name | Net worth | Who they are | Basis for the estimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liang Wenfeng | $44B ($36B–$56B) | Founder of DeepSeek and hedge fund High-Flyer | Liang's $43.5B median rests on a roughly 78 to 82% controlling stake in DeepSeek, whose first outside round closed in June 2026 at $52B to $59B, plus an estimated $2B to $5B from his majority-owned hedge fund High-Flyer. It sits between Bloomberg's $37.9B, which excludes High-Flyer profits, and Forbes's roughly $46B, which appears to reflect a second round at about $74.7B that had not formally closed by October 16. Sources: Bloomberg Forbes |
| 2 | Greg Brockman | $26B ($23B–$38B) | Co-founder and president of OpenAI | Brockman's $25.6B median tracks Forbes and Bloomberg, both near $25.5B, consistent with a 2.5 to 3% OpenAI stake at the $852B valuation set in March 2026 and reconfirmed by an August 2026 employee tender, plus Stripe shares worth over $471M. His sworn May 2026 testimony that the stake was worth nearly $30B (about 3.5%) and unclosed talks at roughly $1.4 trillion drive the $38B high end. Sources: Bloomberg Forbes TechCrunch |
| 3 | Chen Tianshi | $25B ($23B–$26B) | Founder of AI chipmaker Cambricon Technologies | Chen's $24.5B median tracks the market value of his roughly 28.35% direct stake in Shanghai-listed Cambricon, about 178.1 million shares after a May 2026 capitalization issue, worth roughly $24.4B at the October 16 close of 915.0 CNY. Forbes ($24.5B) and Bloomberg ($24.6B) agree, his small economic interest in Beijing Aixi (which holds 7.27% of Cambricon) adds little, and the narrow range allows only for a possible block or illiquidity discount. Sources: Forbes Bloomberg |
| 4 | Brett Adcock | $23B ($16B–$26B) | Founder and CEO of robotics startup Figure AI | Adcock's $23.4B median matches Forbes's real-time figure and combines a roughly 50% Figure AI stake, about $19.5B gross at the $39B September 2025 Series C that remains its last priced round, with an estimated 85% of Hark, worth about $5.1B after a May 2026 raise at a $6B valuation. The $15.5B low end allows for Bloomberg's lower implied 42% Figure stake plus heavy illiquidity discounts. Sources: Forbes Forbes |
| 5 | Edwin Chen | $16B ($11B–$22B) | Founder of data-labeling firm Surge AI | Chen owns an estimated 75 to 82% of Surge AI, which was bootstrapped until mid-2025 and has no confirmed priced round in 2026, so the $15.5B median splits the difference between Forbes's $18.0B, which implies a roughly $24B company valuation, and Bloomberg's $13.0B, which values Surge at about 13 times its $1.2B 2024 revenue. The $21.5B high end assumes Surge holds the $30B valuation explored in 2025 funding talks. Sources: Forbes Bloomberg |
| 6 | Ilya Sutskever | $14B ($9.5B–$19B) | OpenAI co-founder, now founder of Safe Superintelligence | Sutskever's $13.55B median sits just below Bloomberg's $13.8B and has two parts: the fully vested OpenAI stake he testified in May 2026 was worth about $7B, tied to the $852B valuation, and an estimated 21% of Safe Superintelligence at its last disclosed $32B valuation, about $6.7B. Nvidia's planned $5B investment in SSI came without a disclosed valuation, and the high end reflects unclosed OpenAI talks at $1.4 trillion. Sources: Bloomberg Forbes Calcalist |
| 7 | Dario Amodei | $12B ($7.9B–$17B) | Co-founder and CEO of Anthropic | Dario Amodei, the chief executive, holds a cofounder stake in Anthropic valued at the $965B Series H of May 2026, still the last priced mark despite unpriced IPO talk of $1.5 trillion to over $2 trillion. Bloomberg reads the stake as almost 1% ($7.98B) and Forbes as just over 1.6% ($15.5B); the $12.3B median weights the two evenly, since Anthropic's confidential S-1 draft does not disclose founder ownership. Sources: Bloomberg Forbes Reuters |
| 8 | Tom Brown | $12B ($7.9B–$17B) | Anthropic co-founder and research lead | Tom Brown, a research lead and the lead author on GPT-3, holds a cofounder stake in Anthropic valued at the $965B post-money of its $65B Series H in May 2026, as IPO talk of $1.5 trillion to over $2 trillion remains unpriced. Bloomberg reads the stake as slightly under 1% ($7.98B) and Forbes as about 1.6% ($15.5B, on the Forbes 400), and the $12.15B median sits near the midpoint because neither reading is confirmed. Sources: Forbes Eastbaytimes Forbes |
| 9 | Christopher Olah | $12B ($7.9B–$17B) | Anthropic co-founder leading interpretability research | Christopher Olah, who leads interpretability research, holds a cofounder stake in Anthropic valued at the $965B Series H of May 2026, as IPO talk of $1.5 trillion to over $2 trillion is unpriced. Bloomberg reads the stake as slightly under 1% (about $8B) and Forbes as just over 1.6% ($15.5B), and the $12.1B median spans the gap; he is missing from the Forbes 400 only because he is Canadian. Sources: Forbes Eastbaytimes Forbes |
| 10 | Daniela Amodei | $12B ($7.9B–$17B) | Co-founder and president of Anthropic | Daniela Amodei, the president, holds a cofounder stake in Anthropic valued at the $965B post-money of the $65B Series H that closed on May 28, 2026; IPO valuations of $1.5 trillion to over $2 trillion floated after the October 14 investor day are unpriced. Bloomberg reads her stake as slightly under 1% ($7.98B) and Forbes as roughly 1.6% ($15.5B, on the Forbes 400), and the $12.1B median sits between them. Sources: Bloomberg Forbes Reuters |
| 11 | Jack Clark | $12B ($7.9B–$17B) | Anthropic co-founder leading policy | Jack Clark, who leads policy, holds a cofounder stake in Anthropic valued at the $965B Series H of May 2026, while unpriced IPO talk of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion has cooled toward the low end. Bloomberg reads his stake as just under 1% (near $8B) and Forbes as just over 1.6% ($15.5B); the $12.1B median sits between them, and a possible legacy stake from his years at OpenAI adds to the high end. Sources: Forbes Eastbaytimes Reuters |
| 12 | Jared Kaplan | $12B ($7.9B–$17B) | Co-founder and chief science officer of Anthropic | Jared Kaplan, the chief science officer, holds a cofounder stake in Anthropic valued at the $965B Series H of May 2026, as the IPO discussed at $1.5 trillion to over $2 trillion has not priced. Bloomberg puts his stake at about 0.83% after Carta-based dilution adjustments ($7.98B) and Forbes at about 1.6% ($15.5B); the $12.1B median bridges the two because the S-1 draft does not disclose founder allocations. Sources: Bloomberg Forbes Reuters |
| 13 | Sam McCandlish | $12B ($7.9B–$17B) | Co-founder and chief architect of Anthropic | Sam McCandlish, the chief architect, holds a cofounder stake in Anthropic valued at the $965B Series H of May 2026, as IPO talk of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion remains unpriced. Bloomberg reads his stake as roughly 0.8% ($7.98B) and Forbes as about 1.6% ($15.5B), and the $12.1B median bridges the two; his pledge to give away 80% of his wealth is a future commitment and does not reduce the figure. Sources: Eastbaytimes Forbes Reuters |
| 14 | Ben Mann | $8.0B ($4.8B–$14B) | Eighth co-founder of Anthropic | Ben Mann, often described as Anthropic's eighth cofounder, holds a stake valued at the $965B Series H of May 2026, and the $8.0B median matches the $7.98B at which Bloomberg's index reportedly tracks him, the same mark it gives the seven other cofounders. Forbes has no profile for him; the $4.8B low end allows for a stake nearer 0.5%, and the $13.5B high end for marks at the unpriced IPO range. Sources: Eastbaytimes Theatlantic Reuters |
| 15 | Wang Xingxing | $7.7B ($5.8B–$8.8B) | Founder and CEO of robot maker Unitree Robotics | Wang, Unitree Robotics' founder and CEO, holds 86,714,964 shares directly (21.44%) plus a roughly 9.5% pre-IPO stake through the Shanghai Yuyi incentive platform, about 121.4 million look-through shares worth roughly $7.75B at the October 16 close of CNY 426.98, which sets the $7.7B median. That is about half the $15B Forbes estimated after the August 2026 STAR Market debut; counting only direct shares would give about $5.5B. Sources: Forbes SCMP Forbes |
| 16 | Yang Zhilin | $7.5B ($4.5B–$12B) | Founder of Moonshot AI, maker of Kimi | Yang's $7.5B median applies an estimated 15 to 20% stake in Moonshot AI, diluted by successive raises, to a valuation that climbed from $20B in May to as much as $35B in late July and a reported, company-unconfirmed $50B pre-IPO round in October. It discounts for illiquidity and for a pending claim by investors in his former company Recurrent AI that could exceed $700M; the $11.5B high end credits the full $50B mark. Sources: Bloomberg Forbes |
| 17 | Liu Debing | $6.7B ($3.9B–$8.7B) | Co-founder of Chinese AI lab Zhipu AI | Liu's $6.7B median values his holdings in Hong Kong-listed Z.ai (2513.HK), the developer behind Zhipu AI, at the October 16 close of HK$518, roughly 75% below mid-June levels, for a market cap near $30.4B. Trackers split on how much of his holding platforms to count: Bloomberg's 12 to 14% economic interest gives $3.6B to $4.3B, while the median sits between his 20.82% HKEX deemed interest (about $6.0B) and Forbes's roughly 27% (about $8.0B). Sources: Forbes Forbes |
| 18 | Sam Altman | $3.4B ($2.8B–$7.0B) | CEO of OpenAI, major investor in Helion | Altman holds no direct OpenAI equity, and the $3.35B median leans on Forbes's real-time $3.2B, which appears to discount his private holdings steeply and tax his Reddit sale proceeds. At face value his one-third Helion stake alone is worth about $5.2B at the $15.5B Series G of June 2026, and with Stripe, Retro Biosciences and an estimated $1.5B to $3B from Reddit his gross holdings total $7B to $9B, which shapes the $7.0B high end. Sources: Forbes Forbes Helion |
| 19 | Mati Staniszewski | $3.3B ($1.9B–$3.7B) | Co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs | Staniszewski's $3.28B median applies the roughly 15% ElevenLabs stake Forbes attributes to him to the $22B valuation set by a $300M employee and investor tender completed September 30, 2026, double the $11B Series D mark from February, with slight shading for option-pool dilution. The $1.85B low end allows for trackers sticking with the $11B primary round, as his Forbes profile still showed a stale $1.8B in mid-October. Sources: Elevenlabs TechCrunch Forbes |
| 20 | Piotr Dabkowski | $3.3B ($1.9B–$3.7B) | Co-founder and CTO of voice-AI firm ElevenLabs | Dabkowski, ElevenLabs' cofounder and CTO, holds an estimated 15% stake, roughly $3.3B at the $22B valuation set when employees and investors sold about $300M of shares to buyers led by Wellington Management and T. Rowe Price on September 30, 2026. The $3.28B median matches his cofounder's, as their stakes are estimated to be identical; the $1.85B low end reflects the risk that trackers stay anchored to older marks, as his Forbes profile still showed $1.8B. Sources: Elevenlabs TechCrunch Forbes |
| 21 | Alexandr Wang | $3.3B ($2.4B–$4.7B) | Scale AI founder, now leads Meta Superintelligence Labs | Wang's $3.25B median is anchored to Forbes's real-time $3.2B; his wealth is a roughly 15% Scale AI founder stake plus cash realized when Meta bought 49% of Scale for $14.3B in June 2025, at a $29B post-money. A straight 15% of $29B would be $4.35B and Bloomberg values his stake near $5B, which shapes the $4.7B high end, while the low end discounts a private mark unchanged for 16 months and excludes unvested Meta pay. Sources: Forbes Forbes |
| 22 | Bret Taylor | $3.2B ($2.3B–$4.5B) | Co-founder and CEO of AI startup Sierra | Taylor's $3.2B median discounts an estimated 23 to 24% stake in Sierra, worth $3.6B to $3.8B at the $15.8B post-money of its $950M Series E in May 2026, for illiquidity and equity that may still be vesting, and adds an estimated $400M to $500M outside Sierra, including Salesforce shares and a roughly 1% stake in the San Francisco 49ers. Forbes's $2.5B appears stale, still reflecting Sierra's $10B valuation from September 2025. Sources: Forbes Quiverquant |
| 23 | Wojciech Zaremba | $3.2B ($1.3B–$6.8B) | Founding research scientist at OpenAI | No public figure exists for Zaremba, so the $3.15B median assumes a 0.25 to 0.55% OpenAI stake, worth $2.1B to $4.7B at the $852B valuation reconfirmed by the August 2026 employee tender, plus likely tender proceeds in the tens to low hundreds of millions. The stake is set below Sutskever's, whose sworn $7B implies about 0.8%, because Zaremba held less senior roles, and the range runs from $1.25B to $6.8B. Sources: TechCrunch Forbes Forbes |
| 24 | Mira Murati | $3.2B ($1.5B–$8.2B) | Founder and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab | Murati holds an estimated 15 to 25% economic stake in Thinking Machines Lab, plus 100x supervoting control, worth $1.8B to $3.0B at the $12B post-money of its $2B July 2025 seed. The $3.15B median adds possible retained OpenAI units from her years there, put at $400M to $850M, and partial credit for unclosed talks to raise at $40B or more, which drive the $8.2B high end. Sources: TechCrunch The Information Bloomberg |
| 25 | Igor Babuschkin | $3.1B ($1.5B–$5.6B) | xAI co-founder, now founder of River AI | Babuschkin's $3.05B median combines an estimated 0.6 to 1.8% vested xAI stake, worth $1.5B to $4.5B at the $250B value of SpaceX's February 2026 all-stock acquisition and now held as SpaceX stock, with a 30 to 40% stake in River AI, which raised $1.1B in August 2026 at a reported $5B valuation the company has not confirmed. Neither stake is disclosed, and River AI's paper value is discounted for illiquidity. Sources: TechCrunch Reuters Businesswire |
| 26 | Arthur Mensch | $2.7B ($1.7B–$3.2B) | Co-founder and CEO of Mistral AI | Mensch's $2.675B median applies a roughly 11.1% stake, Forbes's earlier 13% estimate diluted by Mistral's €3B Series D, to the round's post-money of more than €21B (about $24.4B), announced September 8, 2026 and led by Samsung Electronics. That matches the $2.7B Forbes gave him on October 2; Bloomberg's older floor of at least 8%, diluted the same way, gives about $1.7B, the low end. Sources: CNBC Forbes |
| 27 | Guillaume Lample | $2.7B ($1.7B–$3.2B) | Co-founder and chief scientist of Mistral AI | Lample, Mistral AI's cofounder and chief scientist, held an estimated 13% stake before the €3B Series D announced September 8, 2026, which diluted it to roughly 11.1% at a post-money of more than €21B (about $24.4B), or about $2.7B. Forbes put each of the three cofounders at $2.7B on October 2, and the $2.675B median treats them identically; Bloomberg's older floor of at least 8% sets the $1.7B low end. Sources: Forbes Forbes |
| 28 | Timothée Lacroix | $2.7B ($1.7B–$3.2B) | Co-founder and CTO of Mistral AI | Lacroix, Mistral AI's cofounder and CTO, is valued like his two cofounders: an estimated 13% stake diluted to roughly 11.1% by the €3B Series D of September 2026, at a post-money of more than €21B (about $24.4B), gives about $2.7B, the figure Forbes gave each on October 2. The $2.675B median sits just below that, while the 8 to 9% stakes implied by Bloomberg and Dealroom would mean $1.7B to $1.9B. Sources: CNBC Forbes |
| 29 | Michael Truell | $2.6B ($2.2B–$2.9B) | Co-founder and CEO of Cursor maker Anysphere | Truell's $2.55B median values the roughly 17.5 million SpaceX shares implied by his estimated 4.5% of Anysphere, whose stock converted into 389.29 million SpaceX Class A shares when SpaceX completed its $60B all-stock acquisition of the Cursor maker on August 14, 2026. At the October 16 close of $146.03 that is about $2.56B, in line with Forbes's real-time $2.5B; the range allows for a stake of 4 to 4.9% and lockup discounts. Sources: Cloudfront Forbes Forbes |
| 30 | Aman Sanger | $2.6B ($2.2B–$2.9B) | Co-founder of Cursor maker Anysphere | Sanger, Cursor's cofounder and COO, is valued like his cofounders: an estimated 4.5% of Anysphere converts to about 17.5 million of the 389,289,254 SpaceX Class A shares issued when the all-stock deal closed on August 14, 2026, worth about $2.56B at the October 16 close of $146.03, which supports the $2.55B median. Forbes lists him at $2.5B, and its report of about $2.4B per cofounder at closing implies a stake nearer 4.0%. Sources: Cloudfront Forbes Forbes |
| 31 | Arvid Lunnemark | $2.6B ($1.9B–$2.9B) | Cursor co-founder, now founder of Integrous Research | Lunnemark left Cursor maker Anysphere in October 2025 to found Integrous Research, but Forbes still credits him with a 4.5% stake, which converted into about 17.5 million SpaceX shares when SpaceX completed its all-stock acquisition on August 14, 2026, worth roughly $2.56B at the October 16 close of $146.03. The $2.55B median assumes he kept that stake; forfeiting unvested shares on his departure would leave about $1.9B. Sources: TechCrunch Qz |
| 32 | Sualeh Asif | $2.6B ($2.2B–$2.9B) | Co-founder and CPO of Cursor maker Anysphere | Asif, Cursor's cofounder and CPO, holds an estimated 4.5% of Anysphere, which converted into roughly 17.5 million of the 389.29 million SpaceX Class A shares issued when the all-stock acquisition closed on August 14, 2026. At the October 16 close of $146.03 that is about $2.56B, close to Forbes's $2.5B, and the $2.55B median allows slightly for lockup terms the deal's 8-K filings did not detail. Sources: Cloudfront Forbes Forbes |
| 33 | John Schulman | $2.5B ($1.0B–$5.4B) | OpenAI co-founder, now chief scientist at Thinking Machines Lab | Schulman, an OpenAI cofounder who left in August 2024, holds fully vested OpenAI equity of undisclosed size; an estimated 0.25% stake, set well below Sutskever's roughly 0.8%, is worth about $2.1B at the $852B valuation reaffirmed by the August 2026 tender. A vested Thinking Machines Lab stake adds about $250M to $400M at its $12B seed valuation, giving the $2.5B median, while his undisclosed OpenAI percentage drives the $1.0B to $5.4B range. Sources: Forbes Forbes TechCrunch |
| 34 | Torsten Reil | $2.4B ($2.0B–$2.8B) | Co-founder of defense AI firm Helsing | Reil, Helsing's cofounder and co-CEO, holds a 12.6% stake by Forbes's estimate, worth about $2.27B at the $18B valuation of the $1.8B Series E that closed on July 13, 2026. The $2.4B median, slightly above Forbes's real-time $2.3B, adds an estimated $70M to $200M in cash and angel investments, largely from the 2014 sale of his earlier company NaturalMotion to Zynga for $527M. Sources: Forbes Forbes |
| 35 | David Silver | $2.4B ($600M–$3.3B) | Ex-DeepMind AlphaGo architect, founder of Ineffable Intelligence | Silver's $2.4B median rests on an estimated 45 to 55% stake in Ineffable Intelligence, trimmed after six senior staff were named cofounders in September 2026; at the $5.1B post-money of its $1.1B April 2026 seed, a 50% stake is worth about $2.55B gross. It counts his founder shares in full, although most are unvested and he has pledged all his equity proceeds to charity through Founders Pledge, which is what the $0.6B low end reflects. Sources: Valueaddvc Wired |
| 36 | Gundbert Scherf | $2.3B ($1.9B–$2.7B) | Co-founder of defense AI firm Helsing | Scherf, Helsing's cofounder and co-CEO, is valued at the $18B mark of the $1.8B Series E that closed on July 13, 2026; the $2.3B median matches Forbes, whose figure implies a stake of about 12.6%. The low end allows for illiquidity discounts or for that stake being pre-round, which would dilute it to about 11% (roughly $1.9B to $2.0B), while a 15% stake would mean about $2.7B. Sources: Forbes Forbes |
| 37 | Niklas Köhler | $2.3B ($1.9B–$2.7B) | Co-founder of European defense-tech firm Helsing | Köhler, Helsing's president and chief product officer, holds an estimated 12 to 13% stake, an equal share of the roughly 37% Dealroom attributes to the three cofounders. At the $18B valuation of the $1.8B Series E that closed on July 13, 2026, a 12.6% stake is about $2.27B, in line with Forbes's real-time $2.3B and the $2.3B median; the range reflects dilution, illiquidity and possible vesting discounts. Sources: Forbes Forbes |
| 38 | Daniel Levy | $2.3B ($900M–$5.2B) | President and co-founder of Safe Superintelligence | Levy, president of Safe Superintelligence, holds an undisclosed stake usually estimated at 5 to 15%, valued against SSI's last disclosed $32B valuation from April 2025, since Nvidia's planned $5B investment came without disclosed terms. The $2.3B median also counts $20M to $100M of residual OpenAI equity; the $5.2B high end allows for a near-equal founder split (Bloomberg credits Sutskever with 21%) or a markup above $32B. Sources: Calcalist Bloomberg |
| 39 | Arvind Jain | $2.3B ($1.7B–$2.9B) | Founder of enterprise AI platform Glean | Jain's $2.25B median combines 11,176,364 Rubrik shares from the April 2026 proxy, worth about $1.25B at the October 16 close of roughly $112.41, with an estimated 15 to 20% stake in Glean, worth $1.1B to $1.44B at its $7.2B June 2025 Series F valuation before an illiquidity discount of about $275M. His exact Glean stake and Rubrik's volatile share price drive the range. Sources: Yahoo Sacra |
| 40 | Jeff Dean | $2.3B ($750M–$7.3B) | Discovery Loop co-founder, formerly Google's chief scientist | Dean left Google on August 5, 2026 after 27 years and co-founded Discovery Loop with three other former Google researchers; an estimated 15 to 20% stake as CEO is worth $1.5B to $2.0B at the roughly $10B valuation reportedly implied by a $1B September deal. His Alphabet shares and stakes in at least 37 AI startups add an estimated $0.5B to $1.0B toward the $2.25B median, and reported $50B talks drive the $7.3B high end. Sources: SEC Mkt cap |
| 41 | Winston Weinberg | $2.2B ($1.6B–$2.6B) | Co-founder and CEO of legal-AI firm Harvey | Weinberg, Harvey's cofounder and CEO, holds an estimated 15.2% stake, an equal split of the roughly 31.5% Dealroom attributes to him and cofounder Gabriel Pereyra less recent dilution, worth about $2.36B at the $15.5B valuation of Harvey's $550M round announced September 9, 2026, up from $11B in March. Scaling Bloomberg's May 2026 figure of about $1.6B to the new valuation gives about $2.18B, and the $2.15B median sits just below both. Sources: Bloomberg CNBC Harvey |
| 42 | Aravind Srinivas | $2.1B ($1.3B–$3.2B) | Co-founder and CEO of Perplexity AI | Srinivas's $2.1B median matches Forbes's real-time figure and reflects an estimated 10 to 11% stake in Perplexity at the $20.08B post-money of its last confirmed round, a $200M raise in September 2025. Reported August 2026 talks with Nvidia at more than $30B, unclosed by mid-October, would lift him to $3.0B to $3.3B, while a smaller stake or secondary-market discounts could pull him toward $1.5B. Sources: Forbes Hackernoon |
| 43 | Gabriel Pereyra | $2.1B ($1.4B–$2.5B) | Co-founder and president of legal-AI firm Harvey | Pereyra, Harvey's cofounder and president, was valued by Bloomberg in May 2026 at about $1.6B on the $11B March valuation, implying a stake of roughly 14.5%. Diluted to about 14% by the $550M round announced in September 2026 at a $15.5B valuation, that stake is worth about $2.17B, and the $2.1B median sits just below; the $1.35B low end allows for illiquidity discounts or trackers not yet reflecting the new round. Sources: Bloomberg Hackernoon |
| 44 | Sanjay Ghemawat | $2.1B ($650M–$6.7B) | Discovery Loop co-founder, formerly a Google senior fellow | Ghemawat, who joined Google in late 1999 as roughly its 40th employee, left on August 5, 2026 to co-found Discovery Loop with Jeff Dean, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le. The $2.05B median combines an assumed 11 to 20% founder stake, valued near the roughly $10B mark of reported $1B funding talks, with $400M to $1.5B of vested Alphabet stock and other assets; reported talks at $50B drive the $6.7B high end. Sources: Blog BI BI |
| 45 | Tang Jie | $1.8B ($1.1B–$1.9B) | Co-founder of Chinese AI lab Zhipu AI | Tang, a Tsinghua professor and Zhipu AI cofounder, holds 26,835,330 shares of Hong Kong-listed Z.ai per its IPO prospectus, about 5.8% after a July 2026 placement, worth roughly $1.77B at the October 16 close of HK$518.0, which is the $1.77B median. Forbes's real-time $1.8B agrees; his shares are locked up until January 2027, and the $1.1B low end allows for a lockup discount or a return to an older 3.39% stake figure. Sources: Forbes Forbes |
| 46 | Clément Delangue | $1.8B ($1.3B–$2.2B) | Co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face | Delangue, Hugging Face's cofounder and CEO, holds an estimated 13 to 15% stake, worth $1.55B to $1.79B of the roughly $11.9B in cash Nvidia agreed in September 2026 to pay shareholders in its $12.9B acquisition. Bloomberg values each of the three cofounders at about $1.8B; the $1.76B median keeps a slight CEO premium and takes a modest discount for antitrust risk before the deal's expected close in the first half of 2027. Sources: TechCrunch Bloomberg |
| 47 | Yan Junjie | $1.8B ($1.5B–$2.0B) | Co-founder of Chinese AI lab MiniMax | Yan holds about 77.46 million shares of Hong Kong-listed MiniMax through controlled entities, a roughly 25.36% beneficial interest worth about $1.80B at the October 16 close of HK$182.1, down from HK$497.6 in mid-June. The $1.75B median sits between that gross value and Forbes's $1.7B; Hurun's RMB 25B estimate from January predates the slide, and no sales have been reported since his lockup expired on July 9. Sources: Forbes Hurun |
| 48 | Demis Hassabis | $1.8B ($700M–$4.2B) | DeepMind co-founder and Isomorphic Labs CEO, now Alphabet chief scientist | Hassabis's $1.75B median combines his payout from Google's roughly $650M purchase of DeepMind in 2014, when he held about 21%, and 12 years of Alphabet stock awards, likely well over half a billion dollars, with a low single-digit percent stake in Isomorphic Labs, valued at an estimated $15B to $20B after its $2.1B Series B in May 2026, and an early Anthropic angel stake. Euronews put him near $600M in May 2026. Sources: Isomorphiclabs BI Fortune |
| 49 | Thomas Wolf | $1.7B ($1.2B–$2.1B) | Co-founder and chief science officer of Hugging Face | Wolf, Hugging Face's cofounder and chief science officer, would receive about $1.57B from the roughly $11.9B cash portion of Nvidia's $12.9B acquisition, signed September 2, 2026, on an equal split of the 39.5% Dealroom attributes to the three founders, plus a share of retention equity. The $1.69B median sits below Bloomberg's $1.8B for each founder, allowing for a CEO premium to Delangue and for regulatory risk before the expected 2027 close. Sources: Bloomberg Inc |
| 50 | Julien Chaumond | $1.7B ($1.2B–$2.1B) | Co-founder and CTO of Hugging Face | Chaumond, Hugging Face's cofounder and CTO, would get roughly $1.1B to $1.6B from the $11.9B cash portion of Nvidia's $12.9B acquisition if the founders' combined stake of 28 to 39.5% is split equally, before any retention awards. The $1.69B median sits slightly below Bloomberg's $1.8B per founder, reflecting a likely CEO premium for Delangue and the risk that regulators delay or block a deal expected to close in the first half of 2027. Sources: TechCrunch Bloomberg Inc |
| 51 | Mark Chen | $1.4B ($550M–$3.2B) | Early OpenAI researcher, now chief research officer | Chen, OpenAI's chief research officer, holds an undisclosed stake estimated at 0.1 to 0.3%, nominally $850M to $2.6B at the $852B valuation reconfirmed by the August 2026 employee tender. The $1.4B median assumes 20 to 30% of that equity is still unvested after his 2024 and 2025 promotions and adds an estimated $30M to $60M in tender cash; Meta reportedly floated offers of up to $1B to recruit him in 2025. Sources: TechCrunch WSJ Sherwood |
| 52 | Liam Fedus | $1.4B ($500M–$2.3B) | Co-founder of Periodic Labs, former OpenAI VP | Fedus, a Periodic Labs cofounder and former OpenAI VP of research, holds an estimated 22 to 28% stake, worth $1.65B to $2.1B at the $7.5B post-money of a June 2026 Series A that appears in the company's charter but has not been formally announced, or about $400M at the $1.3B seed mark. The $1.35B median discounts heavily for illiquidity and unvested founder shares and adds $50M to $150M in OpenAI units. Sources: Forbes Forge |
| 53 | Fei-Fei Li | $1.4B ($950M–$1.7B) | ImageNet creator, co-founder and CEO of World Labs | Li holds an estimated 19% of World Labs, which AMD agreed on September 28, 2026 to buy in an all-stock deal initially worth about $8.2B; Bloomberg says she will be worth at least $1.6B once it closes. AMD's roughly 10 to 15% share-price fall since then cuts the implied deal value to $6.9B to $7.4B, so her stake is worth $1.31B to $1.41B, and the $1.35B median also allows for unvested equity. Sources: Amd Bloomberg CNBC |
| 54 | Wang Xiaochuan | $1.3B ($650M–$1.8B) | Sogou founder, now founder and CEO of Baichuan AI | Wang's $1.25B median applies an effective 40 to 47% economic stake in Baichuan AI to a slightly discounted $2.4B valuation, below the roughly $2.75B of its July 2024 Series A, after a pivot to medical AI, a headcount under 300 and the exit of all his cofounders; that gives about $1.05B. He also holds an estimated $150M to $200M, mostly left from his roughly $194M payout when Tencent took Sogou private in 2021. Sources: Tmtpost Qbitai |
| 55 | Nicholas Joseph | $1.2B ($380M–$2.8B) | Anthropic founding-cohort researcher, heads pretraining | Joseph, Anthropic's head of pretraining, was one of its 11 founding employees but not one of the seven named cofounders, whose stakes are estimated at under 1% each (about $8B). Assuming he holds a tenth to a fifth of a cofounder's stake, a central 0.12 to 0.15% is worth $1.2B to $1.45B at the $965B Series H of May 2026, and the $1.15B median trims that for illiquidity and unvested refresh grants. Sources: Siliconvalley Reuters Reuters |
| 56 | Quoc Le | $1.2B ($200M–$4.4B) | Google Brain founding member, now co-founder of Discovery Loop | Le left Google DeepMind on August 5, 2026, after 15 years at Alphabet, to co-found Jeff Dean's startup Discovery Loop; an assumed 8 to 15% founder stake is worth roughly $0.8B to $1.5B near the $10B valuation of August funding talks, supporting the $1.15B median, and he holds an estimated $100M to $200M in vested Alphabet stock and cash. Reported talks at a $50B valuation drive the $4.4B high end. Sources: Wired Blog BI |
| 57 | Mike Krieger | $1.1B ($500M–$2.2B) | Instagram co-founder, now co-leads Anthropic Labs | Krieger's $1.1B median combines a floor of realized Instagram and Meta wealth, estimated at $350M to $600M after Facebook paid $715M for Instagram, with a partially vested Anthropic executive grant, plausibly 0.05 to 0.15% after dilution, marked off the company's $965B Series H valuation. The figure is uncertain because his Anthropic stake size and vesting are undisclosed, and the private equity warrants a meaningful discount. Sources: Wikipedia Reuters |
| 58 | Daniel Gross | $1.1B ($390M–$2.5B) | Investor and SSI co-founder, now at Meta Superintelligence Labs | Gross, who co-leads compute at Meta Superintelligence Labs, left Safe Superintelligence about 13 months after co-founding it and likely vested 25 to 30% of an estimated 10 to 20% founder stake, worth $560M to $1.47B at SSI's $32B April 2025 mark after a 30% illiquidity discount. Venture carry, angel stakes, an estimated $75M to $185M in realized cash and his Meta stock also count toward the $1.1B median. Sources: Wikipedia Dealroom |
| 59 | Jakub Pachocki | $1.1B ($375M–$2.5B) | OpenAI chief scientist, successor to Sutskever | Pachocki, OpenAI's chief scientist since May 2024, holds profit participation units estimated at 0.05 to 0.20% of OpenAI, well below Sutskever's roughly 0.8%, or $0.4B to $1.7B at the $852B valuation confirmed by the August 2026 employee tender. The $1.05B median assumes about 0.11% vested plus $30M to $70M in tender cash; larger retention grants and the unclosed $1.4 trillion talks drive the $2.45B high end. Sources: Forbes TechCrunch WSJ |
| 60 | Aidan Gomez | $1.1B ($450M–$2.1B) | Co-founder and CEO of Cohere | Gomez, Cohere's cofounder and CEO, holds an estimated 6 to 10% stake after dilution from the Aleph Alpha combination and a pending Series E, worth $1.1B to $1.8B at the roughly $20B valuation Cohere is reportedly raising at, versus its last closed mark of $7.0B in September 2025. The $1.05B median applies a strict illiquidity haircut because that round has not closed. Sources: Axios Benzinga |
Below the cluster of mega-founders at the top, the list thins out fast. Liang Wenfeng sits alone above 30 billion, and the seven Anthropic cofounders (Dario Amodei and Jared Kaplan among them) bunch together at about 12 billion each, while most of the 60 land between one and four billion. Even Brett Adcock, fourth on the list at 23 billion just four years after starting Figure AI, is closer to the pack than to the top.
The top of the list is almost entirely founders, and the single richest person in AI is not a household name. He is Liang Wenfeng, whose majority stake in DeepSeek is worth roughly 44 billion, ahead of OpenAI president Greg Brockman, who told a court his stake alone is worth nearly 30 billion, and Cambricon's Chen Tianshi.
Wealth here is extraordinarily top-heavy. The ten founders at the far right hold more than the rest of the field combined, while most of the 148 fall well short of a billion, including some of the most celebrated names in the science. Yann LeCun lands near 600 million, a small fraction of the founders building on his ideas.
Founders run the top of every group, and the salaried researchers, however senior or decorated, mostly sit in the low billions or below. Demis Hassabis, who co-founded DeepMind, comes in under two billion, and within the researcher tier the best paid are people like Mark Chen and Nicholas Joseph rather than the famous academics. Andrej Karpathy, for all his renown, sits near 210 million.
American and Chinese nationals hold most of the tracked wealth, and the nine Chinese billionaires, led by Liang Wenfeng of DeepSeek and Chen Tianshi of Cambricon, average far more each than the twenty Europeans. Europe has more than twice as many billionaires as China but much smaller individual fortunes. The richest outside the big three blocs are Ilya Sutskever, raised in Israel, and Anthropic cofounder Christopher Olah of Canada.
Almost all of this wealth is illiquid founder equity, and very little of it has turned into cash. Only about 10 billion of the 377 billion total is in public-company RSUs, and even the employee-equity slice is mostly locked up. Alec Radford, the researcher behind GPT-2 and arguably OpenAI's most important individual contributor, holds paper he largely cannot sell.
Even at the very top, the fortunes are mostly paper. Sam Altman is the rare figure whose wealth sits almost entirely outside his main company, in bets like the fusion startup Helion, since he holds no direct OpenAI equity.
Time in the field barely tracks with wealth. Mike Krieger reached a billion roughly two years after moving into AI, on the strength of his Instagram payout and an Anthropic grant, and Bret Taylor built a multibillion-dollar stake in Sierra within four years of turning to AI agents. At the other end, Sanjay Ghemawat has 36 years in the field and David Silver built AlphaGo over two decades, yet neither cracks the top 20.
The fortunes skew strikingly young. The four Cursor cofounders, led by 25-year-old Michael Truell, are each worth billions before turning 27, and Aidan Gomez of Cohere reached a billion at 29, less than a decade after co-authoring the Transformer paper as an intern. The oldest billionaire on the chart, Sanjay Ghemawat, is around 60.
A PhD is neither necessary nor sufficient. The group medians sit within about two times of each other, and the richest people with no degree at all (Greg Brockman, Sam Altman, and Anthropic interpretability lead Christopher Olah) outrank most of the doctorates. Liang Wenfeng built the largest AI fortune with only a master's.
Methodology
We started from a roster of about 150 of the most prominent people in AI, generated by a team of parallel research agents (multi_agent) across the frontier labs, big tech, AI startups, and the major non-US labs. One web-research agent then ran per person (agent_map) to gather the inputs that determine net worth, namely the equity stake and its source, the employer’s latest valuation, what has vested, and realized cash. We passed that evidence into a calibrated numeric forecast of each person’s net worth, which returns a full range with an 80% confidence interval rather than a single number. All three are operations in the FutureSearch SDK.
We then re-checked every figure across several independent rounds against Forbes, Bloomberg, and Hurun, corrected what was stale or wrong, and ran a final consistency audit so that people in the same situation are valued the same way. The numbers are estimates with real uncertainty, not precise accounting, and each rests on a named source rather than a guess. Figures are as of October 16, 2026. The October run researched each company once for all of its people and then estimated each person separately, where the June run researched every person on their own, and we checked the top 60, plus everyone whose estimate moved by more than 30%, against Forbes, Bloomberg, and Hurun wherever they list the person.