Publications like Forbes and Business Insider are renowned for their in-depth analyses of the distribution of the world’s wealth; in particular, they are known for providing as accurate a look as possible at the net worths of the wealthiest people in the U.S. as well as the world. Cross-referencing the two, especially with data compiled by Wealth-X—a company that frequently supplies such information to Business Insider—can give you yet another perspective on who the richest people are in a particular industry, in a certain country, or the world over. Determining whose wealth is superior can be tricky, but more delicate still is discerning who the most powerful are. There are far too many factors at play to determine such a subjective truth about a global population of approximately seven billion people, but narrowing the scope to just the tech industry within the United States, we can make a rather sound argument.
Money is not power per se, but it is certainly a tool of such power that we can start by identifying the richest tech moguls in the U.S. Steve Ballmer has long been referred to as “the numbers guy” at Microsoft, and Business Insider lists his net worth at $26.3 billion; Sergey Brin and Larry Page are the co-founders of Google worth $37 billion and $38.5 billion respectively; despite considerable drops in net worth in recent history according to Forbes, Mark Zuckerberg still maintains $42.8 billion; Larry Ellison, founder of CIA partner, Oracle Corp., is listed at $45.3 billion; Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.Com, is said to be worth $56.6 billion; and of course, listed at an insurmountable $87.4 billion is Microsoft founder, Bill Gates. As powerful as wealth can be, there are other factors to determine who the most powerful actually are based on their industries, their involvement in their business ventures, and their roles. Taking these things into consideration, we propose the following 7 Most Powerful Tech Moguls in America.
Elon Musk
He’s not only estimated to have a net worth of $13.1 billion; he also is the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, Inc. The former has contracts with NASA and the U.S. Air Force for billions of dollars worth of launches for innumerable missions to Mars and space stations. He’s also the chairman of Solar City, co-chairman of OpenAI, co-founder of Zip2, and founder of X.Com, which merged with the harbinger of new precedents in online banking, PayPal. There are wealthier people out there (somewhere), but his influence stretches across public and private sectors and across multiple industries. He’s the epitome of what this list demonstrates, which is that there’s more to power than money.
Satya Nadella
After Steve Ballmer stepped down, Nadella took charge of the Microsoft conglomerate as Chief Executive Officer. The tech industry is the least likely industry to argue with the sentiment that the world doesn’t run on money; it runs on software. Every one of the people on this list owe Microsoft for the advancements their companies and business ventures were able to make, and it is hardly a far cry to assume that the innovators of the future will also depend on Microsoft’s direction. In fact, other entire industries rely on Microsoft, which makes them dependent upon Satya Nadella despite his net worth being, by far, the lowest on this list—$45 million.
Sergey Brin
Co-founder of Google, Brin played a significant role in the broad-scale restructuring the company underwent in 2016. Google and its split ventures separately moved under a new umbrella corporation, Alphabet, which has since automated the modern home and brought self-driving cars into fruition. Brin is now the president of Alphabet.
