41 Israelis make Forbes billionaires club; Wiz founders double fortunes
Miriam Adelson is richest Israeli on annual list; Musk regains top spot with a net worth of $342 billion; Springsteen, Schwarzenegger, Seinfeld new on the list
Sharon Wrobel is a tech reporter for The Times of Israel
The Israeli founders of cloud security firm Wiz, which was sold last month to Google in a historic $32 billion deal, more than doubled their fortunes over the past year, according to Forbes’ uber-exclusive roster of the world’s richest people. Forty-one Israelis made this year’s Forbes list of billionaires, up by four from last year.
Now with a net worth of about $2.1 billion each, Wiz co-founders Assaf Rappaport, 41, Yinon Costica, 42, Ami Luttwak, 41, and Roy Reznik, 36, were already part of the ranking after entering the billionaires club last year with a net worth of about $1 billion each.
This year they were joined by newcomers Canadian-Israeli philanthropist Sylvan Adams, 66, with a net worth of $2.8 billion; Ishay Davidi, 63, founder of private equity firm FIMI Opportunity Funds, with $1.8 billion; real estate businessman Yigal Dimri with $1.2 billion; and Oran Holtzman, 41, founder of Oddity Tech with $1 billion in the list released late on Tuesday.
The highest-ranked Israeli was Miriam Adelson, 79, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who was listed as the 56th-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $32.1 billion. Adelson is from Israel, but Forbes placed her in the US in its annual ranking of the world’s richest people, since she holds American citizenship and is based in Las Vegas.
As in 2024, Israeli-born shipping and real estate magnate Eyal Ofer, 74, was ranked the wealthiest person listed by Forbes as Israeli, at 68th place globally with a fortune of $28.2 billion, up from 84th place last year.
His brother, Idan Ofer, 69, is the second-richest, and moved up to 89th place from 120th place a year earlier with $22.5 billion, generated from shipping interests. The Ofer brothers are the sons of the late Israeli shipping tycoon Sammy Ofer, who was once Israel’s richest man.
Igor Bukhman, 43, and his younger brother Dmitri, 39, owners of the gaming giant Playrix, were ranked 280th in the global list with $9.8 billion.
Rounding off the top five in Israel are the Wertheimer family with a net worth of $7.6 billion, as well as Teddy Sagi, 53, the founder of gambling software firm Playtech with $7.1 billion, listed in 464th place globally. Other Israelis on the list are Check Point Software Technologies co-founder Gil Shwed 56, with a net worth of $6.4 billion; filmmaker Arnon Milchan, 80, with $6.3 billion; and businesswoman Shari Arison, 67, with $6 billion.
Elon Musk, 53, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, regained the top spot as the richest person in the world after adding $147 billion to his fortune over the past year, taking his net worth to a whopping $342 billion. The world’s second-richest person was Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, 40, with a net worth of about $216 billion, followed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, 61, with $215 billion.
US tech giant founders Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Steve Ballmer, as well as France’s Bernard Arnault, CEO of luxury goods giant LVMH, and US investor Warren Buffet, were also in the top 10. Donald Trump’s net worth more than doubled, from an estimated $2.3 billion to an estimated $5.1 billion over the past year, ranking the US president as the 700th richest person in the world.
Forbes said there were 3,028 billionaires around the world this year, with combined assets worth $16.1 trillion, up almost $2 trillion over 2024. The surge in wealth has made 288 people, including, rockstar Bruce Springsteen, movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, and comedian Jerry Seinfeld billionaires over the past year. The US has a record 902 billionaires, followed by China with 516, and India with 205.
