It won’t come as a surprise that the five richest people in the world are tech billionaires based in the United States, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

At number one – as of the close of business on 5 June 2025 – is Elon Musk (yes, born in South Africa, but now an American citizen), with a net worth of $368-billion. To put that in perspective, only two African countries have economies larger than Musk’s fortune – South Africa, with a GDP of $400-billion, and Egypt, at $383-billion.

The graphic above compares the net worth of the world’s top five richest men to the GDPs of Africa’s five largest economies, based on the IMF’s World Economic Outlook (April 2025).

Altogether, the combined net worth of the top 10 on Bloomberg’s latest billionaires index stands at $1.97-trillion – exceeding the entire GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa, which the IMF estimates at $1.88-trillion for 2024.