The Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom is reportedly creating fortunes at a historic pace, reshaping the ranks of the ultra-wealthy and sparking one of the largest wealth creation waves in modern history.
According to CNBC, AI startups have minted dozens of new billionaires in 2025, fueling a boom that is rapidly becoming the largest wealth creation wave in modern history.
Blockbuster fundraising rounds for companies such as Anthropic, Safe Superintelligence, OpenAI, Anysphere, and others have propelled valuations to record heights, creating vast paper fortunes.
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According to CB Insights, there are now 498 AI unicorns, private companies valued at $1 billion or more with a combined worth of $2.7 trillion. Remarkably, 100 of these companies were founded last two years (2023). In addition, looking at the AI companies that are currently valued above $100 million, there are about 1,332.
Some of the newly minted AI billionaires include
Alexandr Wang
Founder and CEO of Scale AI is a billionaire with a net worth of around $2-3.6 billion, but his company’s $14 billion valuation in May 2024 and a $14.3 billion investment from Meta have likely created numerous millionaires among early employees and investors.
Lucy Guo
Co-founder of and former CEO of Scale AI, who left in 2018, is now the youngest self-made billionaire in the world, with an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion.
Sam Altman
The CEO of OpenAI has a personal fortune of $1.9 billion, not from OpenAI equity but from other investments (e.g., Stripe, Reddit). However, employees with equity stakes are poised to become millionaires as the company grows.
Dario Amodei
Co-founder of Anthropic has an estimated net worth of over $1.2 billion with the number likely far higher after the company’s recent fundraise that values the company at over $170 billion.
CoreWeave
Founders Michael Intrator, Brian Venturo, Brannin McBee, and investor Jack Cogen are billionaires with net worths ranging from $1.2 billion to $3.1 billion after CoreWeave’s $23 billion IPO in March 2025. The company’s rapid growth from a $2 billion valuation in 2023 has likely created millionaires among its early employees and investors.
Liang Wenfeng
The founder and CEO of Chinese AI company DeepSeek is reportedly worth over $1 billion based on the estimated value of the low-cost AI company. The company’s success, without outside investors, suggests that early team members and internal stakeholders may have become millionaires.
Mira Murati
Former OpenAI CTO and CEO of Thinking Machines Lab, raised $2 billion for her new venture, valued at $12 billion by July 2025. This
Michael Truell
The 25-year-old founder attained billionaire status after his company Anysphere’s valuation jumped from $9.9 billion to $18-20 billion. Early employees and investors in this startup are probably new millionaires.
CNBC business news wealth editor Robert Frank, speaking on Squawk Box, compared the AI boom to the dot com boom era, noting how the wealth creation is different. He further stated that the big difference back then was that everyone was that every company was going public. Unlike now, most of these AI companies can stay private longer because of massive capital coming in, despite being private with their wealth being less liquid.
The surge extends beyond individual markets. Publicly traded giants like Nvidia, Meta, and Microsoft, along with infrastructure providers powering AI’s data and computing needs, have seen stock prices soar. The demand for AI talent has also produced staggering compensation packages for engineers. “Going back over 100 years of data, we have never seen wealth created at this size and speed,” said Andrew McAfee, principal researcher at MIT. “It’s unprecedented.”
Bloomberg estimated in March that four of the largest private AI firms had already minted at least 15 billionaires with a combined net worth of $38 billion—and more unicorns have emerged since. While much of this wealth is tied up in private equity, new liquidity pathways are emerging.
The Bay Area remains the epicenter of the AI boom. In 2024, Silicon Valley firms raised more than $35 billion in venture capital. San Francisco now boasts 82 billionaires, surpassing New York’s 66. The region’s millionaire population has doubled in the past decade, outpacing New York’s 45% growth. “The people who know how to found, fund, and grow tech companies are here,” McAfee noted. “Silicon Valley is still Silicon Valley.”
Experts expect the newly wealthy AI entrepreneurs to reinvest heavily in the tech sector, mirroring the dot-com era. Many are likely to focus on AI-driven disruption, particularly in fields like wealth management. The true winners, however, will be those who build their entire operations around AI strategically integrating it into every process, partnering across industries, and transforming raw capability into lasting value.
The recent AI boom is a modern-day gold rush and the biggest rewards will go to those building the tools, infrastructure, and strategies that turn today’s AI breakthroughs into tomorrow’s enduring empires.