While artificial intelligence (AI) may be giving tech startup entrepreneurs around the world a few headaches, the industry as a whole has a lot to thank AI for. That amount is $150 billion.
This is the amount that the world’s ultra-wealthy are thought to have gained thanks to the AI boom, which was kicked off by OpenAI’s CHatGPT and rippled through announcements from Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and others.
This year, the stock market has been obsessed with large language models like ChatGPT, prompting the establishment of new venture capital funds in search of the next industry disruptor and the reaping of financial rewards by established Big Tech firms that hopped on the bandwagon.
Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, was one of the first to witness a direct increase in his philanthropic fortune because of the term artificial intelligence.
After an April results call for Microsoft focused on artificial intelligence, the company’s stock price skyrocketed, increasing Bill Gates’ personal wealth by $2 billion.
With an estimated 103 million shares in the firm, Gates’ net worth increased by almost $40 million for each of the fifty occurrences of the phrase “artificial intelligence” on the call in the days after the earnings report.
So far this year, Gates’ wealth has increased by $24 billion, as measured by Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.
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Potential Gain from Metaphoric Analysis
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s largest individual shareholder, saw his wealth increase by about $40 billion thanks to the “year of efficiency” and the company’s focus on artificial intelligence.
As Zuckerberg has abandoned his Metaverse fantasy and returned to reality with massive layoffs, Meta’s stock has had a resurgence this year, rising 125% so far in 2023.
Zuckerberg, who famously only takes $1 in pay per year, has also been teasing the company’s travels into A.I. this year, first hinting at its deployment at the end of January and then making a huge announcement about a new A.I.-focused project group at the end of February.
Before Zuckerberg’s January revelation, he was worth $55.1 billion; after his February A.I. disclosure, he was worth $63 billion; and now he is worth $102 billion.
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The affluent get richer
Thanks to Oracle’s announcements about hastening the rollout of A.I., CTO Larry Ellison has surpassed Bill Gates in the Billionaire Index.
The founder and former CEO of the $338 billion company owns 35% of the company, giving him a profit of roughly 50% year to date.
Ellison’s good fortune, like that of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, followed a huge revelation made by Oracle about artificial intelligence (AI) in an earnings call in March.
The call took place on March 9, when Ellison’s net worth was approximately $99.7 billion, and his wealth has been on the rise ever since. According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, it’s currently at $138 billion.
The CEO of A.I. favorite Nvidia on Wall Street has, of course, also watched his fortune grow.
In Jensen Huang’s first year as president and CEO of the chip, software, and systems developer, the company’s stock price increased by 198%. Huang is one of the company’s three co-founders.
Reportedly worth 1.3 billion dollars, the company provides artificial intelligence-related products and services and is owned by Huang, who is said to own 1.3 million shares.
This has contributed to Market Insider’s estimate that the rich list has gained $150 billion this year due to A.I., and to Huang’s net worth virtually tripling from $13.8 billion in January to $38.3 billion as measured by the index.
