Mr Musk has taken the top spot in the annual list from French luxury goods titan Bernard Arnault, according to the magazine – although he was already top of Forbes’ real-time billionaires list.
The Trump adviser’s net worth grew by 75% to an estimated $342bn (£264.73bn) – with his jump in wealth following big new valuations of SpaceX and his artificial intelligence company xAI, and a 12-month rise in Tesla stock despite its share price plunging recently, Forbes said.
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It is Forbes’ 39th annual world’s billionaires list, which the publication describes as “the definitive ranking of the world’s richest people”.
On the list are a record-breaking 3,028 billionaires, up 247 from last year. Between them, they’re worth $16.1trn
Tech bosses dominate the ranking, with all the top 10 spots taken by men.
Coming second to Mr Musk is Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg with $216bn (£167.4bn).
He’s followed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, worth $215bn (£166.6bn).
Coming in fourth is Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, the computer tech business, who has a net worth of $192bn (£148.7bn).
The only non-tech boss in the top five is Mr Arnault and his family with $178bn (£137.9bn). They’re at the helm of the luxury goods business LVMH, which owns brands like Louis Vuitton and Moet Hennessy.
Another non-tech boss comes next in the form of investor Warren Buffett with his $154bn (£119.3bn) fortune.
Google founders Larry Page (worth $144bn or £111.6bn) and Sergey Brin (worth $138bn or £107bn) take the seventh and eighth spots.
The only non-American in the top 10 is Spaniard Amancio Ortega. As founder of the Inditex fashion brand, which owns Zara and Bershka. He’s amassed $124bn (£96bn).
Tenth richest is former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer with $118bn (£91.4bn).
One of the 288 newcomers on this year’s billionaires list is Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google parent company Alphabet. His net worth rose to $1.1bn (£850m) as the value of his Google shares increased.
Another notable person on the longer billionaires list is President Donald Trump, whose wealth has doubled to an estimated $5.1bn (£3.95bn) as his social media company Truth Social became a publicly listed company and he sold his own cryptocurrency token.
