There are six companies on the planet valued at over a trillion dollars, five of which are in America’s Silicon Valley, the mecca for technology innovation.
The wealth of the world’s most valuable companies is immense but what about those who run these titans of technology, what is the net worth of Big Tech’s Chief Executive Officers (CEO)?
We looked at the seven most valuable technology companies on Earth and the net worth of their leaders according to Forbes’ real-time billionaire list.
Tim Cook, Apple CEO, net worth: $1.9 billion
Apple market cap: $2.86 trillion
As the CEO of Apple since 2011, Tim Cook oversees the world’s most valuable company. While much of his wealth comes from his Apple salary and stock grants, his estimated net worth is around $1.9 billion. This makes him one of the wealthiest CEOs in tech but he comes in at a mere 1,597 on the world’s billionaire list.
Cook took a 40% pay cut in 2023, which lowered his compensation to $49 million, down from $84 million the previous year. Don’t worry about the 63-year-old though, he’ll be fine, he owns 3,280,052 shares of Apple common stock, about 0.02% of all outstanding shares, a stake worth about $604 million today.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, net worth: $900 million
Microsoft market cap: $2.75 trillion
After taking over the reins at Microsoft in 2014, Satya Nadella has led a highly successful transition towards cloud and artificial intelligence (AI). His revival of Microsoft stock has added to his estimated $900 million net worth.
Thanks, in part, to the software company’s shrewd moves into AI through their investment in ChatGPT owner OpenAI, Nadella saw his stock quite literally rise in 2023. MSFT shares have grown by over 60% in the last year.
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet CEO, net worth: $600 million – $1.3 billion
Alphabet market cap: $1.74 trillion
Sundar Pichai became the CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet in 2019. With Alphabet stock continuing to perform well, Pichai’s net worth is hard to pin down and estimated to be anywhere from $600 million to $1.3 billion. Under Sundar Pichai’s leadership, Alphabet has seen impressive revenue growth, especially in its cloud computing business, as the 51-year-old integrated machine learning across the tech giant’s diverse product offerings.
As of 20 December, the Indian-born leader held 2.4 million shares in Alphabet which is around $335 million at today’s price.
Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO, net worth: $320 million
Amazon market cap: $1.53 trillion
If you were expecting to see Jeff Bezos here, think again. The founder of e-commerce behemoth Amazon stepped down as CEO in 2021 to focus on his space company Blue Origin. Andy Jassy stepped up to the top job after serving as the head of Amazon’s highly successful cloud platform business Amazon Web Services (AWS).
While his salary and stock awards are generous, Jassy’s estimated net worth according to The Street is around $320 million – far lower than his predecessor Jeff Bezos, who remains Executive Chair, the company’s biggest shareholder, and the third richest person in the world with his $170 billion fortune.
Jensen Huang, NVIDIA CEO, net worth: $42 billion
NVIDIA market cap: $1.17 trillion
Under Jensen Huang’s innovative leadership, Nvidia has transformed from a GPU company into an AI powerhouse, with products like its Drive platform enabling major advances in autonomous driving while its graphics cards remain top choices for gaming, crypto mining, and data centers.
The Taiwan-born businessman has also focused on Nvidia’s professional visualization offerings to support strides in fields like architecture and scientific computing.
Huang founded the semiconductor maker in 1993 and with the company’s stock rocketing up 226% last year, the 60-year-old’s 1.3 million shares have soared in value and helped triple his net worth.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, net worth: $122 billion
Meta Platforms market cap: $885 billion
The youngest CEO on this list but the second richest, 37-year-old Mark Zuckerberg has amassed a fortune of $122 billion thanks to his 14% stake in Meta, the parent company of social networks Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram.
After a tough 2022, Meta bounced back, and its stock nearly tripled in 2023. Its rise was driven by a sharp rebound in advertising revenues and healthy profit margins.
Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, net worth: $244 billion
Tesla market cap: $758 billion
Does anyone not know who Elon Musk is these days? The richest person alive, very possibly the most famous man on the planet and certainly one of the most influential thanks to his control of X (formerly Twitter). Elon Musk is everywhere at the moment.
We’re talking about his stewardship of electric car pioneer Tesla here, but the 52-year-old also owns X, he’s the founder and CEO of SpaceX, founder of tunnel construction firm Boring Company, co-founder of Neuralink the brain chip maker and even co-founder of OpenAI the company behind ChatGPT. His life must be exhausting!
Back to Tesla, the seventh most valuable tech company in the world, and it too had a barnstorming 2023. Why are we classing it as a tech company? Because it sees itself as a software company as well as an automobile maker. The firm is at the forefront of autonomous driving technology.
In 2023 Tesla produced their five millionth vehicle and doubled their stock value in 2023. Musk, who has a 13% stake in the company, saw his net worth soar as a result.
Tesla 2023 recap
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Thank you for helping us continue to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy! pic.twitter.com/dD5O35CFbV
— Tesla (@Tesla) January 3, 2024
Picture: Created in Canva from Creative Commons images
