Image by Morgan Housel.
While many people are struggling to get by, the ten wealthiest U.S. citizens have been experiencing great enhancements to their wealth as seen in the table below based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. They managed an obscene accumulation of additional wealth in 2025 of $563.3 billion over the vulgar quantities they held at the beginning of the year, an increase of 29.2% which, during the last three years, more than doubled, increasing 211%. Most, if not all of their wealth and the increases, are unlikely to be subject to income taxes except if the assets are sold at a gain. If the assets sold have been held for more than a year, they are taxed at the long-term capital gains rate which is lower than the rate imposed had these people earned the money from working. Obviously, a wealth tax on their financial assets should be imposed to better finance needed programs and services.
Leading the pack of ten is Musk. Recently, according to Bloomberg figures, he has experienced great ups and downs in the quantity of his wealth though the down periods may have made little difference in the power he exercises in the U.S. plutocracy with a democratic façade. His $288 million “contribution” to the Republican campaigns (mostly for Trump) as of mid-December of 2024 amounted to less than .06%, six one-hundredths of a percent, of his wealth. To match Musk’s $288 million would require 288,000 people to contribute $1,000 each or for 2,880,000 people to contribute $100 each.
In recent years, if a change in one’s fortune of over $100 billion is significant, then Musk has undergone a few significant changes in the quantity of his holdings. Back in the “dark” days of Biden, as of the beginning of 2023, based on the Bloomberg Index, the size of his fortune came to $137 billion having declined $133 billion from where it stood at the start of the year
There would soon be a turnaround from those dark days. As of the end of 2023, much of his lost wealth had been restored when it reached $229 billion. During the first part of 2024, it began to decline again, falling to a “mere” $183 billion as of May 11, 2024, before moving upward to $269 billion as of October 1. With Trump’s election, it dramatically increased reaching $486 billion as of December 17, 2024, a gain of more than $300 billion in just over 7 months, showing the wonders of the U.S. capitalist system that allows a single individual to accumulate a massive quantity of wealth at a time in which many people have pressing needs for food, housing, medical care, etc.
With Trump in power and Musk heading up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), making him what some saw as an unelected co-president, Musk may have seen himself as making a “colossal sacrifice” given what happened to his wealth during his “service” to the country. It again dramatically declined by over $100 billion reaching $323 billion on April Fool’s Day. Soon after reducing his role in Doge and eventually leaving his position, his wealth took off again, growing to $470 billion as of October 1, 2025, then increasing another $172 billion to $642 billion as of December 19, 2025.
That $642 billion is over $125 billion more than the combined wealth held on that same day by the second wealthiest Page ($264 billion) and third wealthiest Bezos ($250 billion). This is happening despite the likely decline in the sale of Tesla cars in 2025 and the hostility shown towards electric cars by the Trump regime as reflected in a provision of the big, beautiful bill that eliminated the tax credits for electric cars. Yet, the price of Tesla stock, of which Musk owns some 500 million shares and whose price has a big impact on the size of his wealth, has, since April 1, 2025 as of December 19, gone up more than 182% while his wealth increased 198%.
Below is a table showing the size of Musk’s wealth and the price of Tesla stock.
Despite what may have been his on again, off again, stormy relationship with the “stable genius” Trump, at the end of 2025, Musk’s wealth was up 43.2% for the year. By comparison, the wealth of the remaining wealthiest ten was up “only” 20.1% despite the efforts of many of them to have spent time flattering Trump.