The list of the world’s five richest men was just released on August 1st, 2025, and the amount of money these men hold is insane.
It is a kind of money that separates one species from another. It draws a line between gods and mortals, between those who make history and those who are buried without a name and perhaps the saddest part is this, while these five men walk the earth with billions stuffed in their bank accounts, there are people in the same world, on the same planet, breathing the same air, who live in extreme poverty, with little or no chances of escape. Sad!
At the top of this towering pyramid of money stands Elon Musk with a net worth of over $406 billion. Like seriously? This is crazy. He should just give me just $150,000 of that money and I will be the happiest man on earth because for him, that is just like 5 cents. Most of Musk’s wealth is tied to his ownership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and his countless artificial intelligence ventures.
He is not just the richest man in the world; he is richer than over 100 countries. Following him is Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, with a wealth of $262.2 billion. This is a man whose software runs most of the operations in big governments and corporations.
Third on the list is Mark Zuckerberg, the youngest among the five, who owns Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and now several AI tools.
His estimated worth is $254.6 billion. Then there is Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who sits comfortably with $233.4 billion. Finally, we have Larry Page, co-founder of Google, who is close to $150 billion. These figures are based on Fortune’s billionaires’ 2025 report.
In total, these five men hold more than $1.3 trillion. I don’t know if that math is correct but If you didn’t get it right, it is twelve zeros. These are not fictional characters from a science fiction movie. They are human beings like us, living, breathing, and smiling men who happen to control more wealth than the bottom half of the world’s population combined.
You don’t need to go to Harvard or Yale to know that the world is such a crazy place. These men have private jets, mansions the size of villages, and projects that aim to colonize planet Mars. But back here on earth, some people can’t even afford clean drinking water.
Children in parts of the world are sleeping hungry, missing school because their parents can’t afford uniforms or transport. Entire families live on less than $2 a day, while these billionaires can make thousands in less than a second just by sitting.
If one of these men decided to give you $1 million, it would be like handing out a single penny or dime from his pocket. He won’t even feel it.
In fact, for someone like Elon Musk, that is less than what he makes in an hour. But for you and me, $1 million means the whole world and you can even die out of excitement just by touching it. With it, I can build a hospital in my home village. I can open a school that will educate children and create generational wealth with it.
Let me be honest, this world is not balanced. If you make $20,000 per year, it would take you 50 years to reach $1 million and that is only if you never spend a single penny, not even on food or rent. If you saved $100 every month, it would take you over 800 years to save $1 million.
That is longer than the age of some nations. In short, if you are not born rich or lucky, your chances of climbing the economic ladder are like trying to run a marathon with one leg. You know what I mean; you can’t win a marathon with a broken limb.
These billionaires earn in hours what you and I will never touch in a lifetime (God forbid) unless we are very lucky. These richest five men in the world live among us. They eat, they breathe, and they laugh, just like we do. But they live in a different reality.
Meanwhile, your average man wakes up every day praying that nothing goes wrong because of one accident, one illness or one mistake and it is over.
If there is something we can learn from this wealth inequality, it is the fact that the world will never be economically leveled and all that we can do is to be happy in the food chain. No matter how bad your life is, you must learn to appreciate it because there are high chances that you are better off than 200 millions people, even with your thousands of problems. Peace.