Report · July 14, 2026
How much wealth have you created for other people?
— Jeff Bezos, DealBook Summit The answer, for the twelve who built the biggest companies —

$28.5T shared with the world

Twelve founders and builders you probably think of as billionaires — and the trillions they handed to everyone else along the way.

The math is simple. Wealth Shared = Market Cap − Founder's Personal Stake. Every dollar of a company's value not held by the person who built it is a dollar held by index funds, pension plans, employees, and retail investors - the public. Market caps live from tracker sources on July 14, 2026; founder ownership from the most recent SEC filings.

The Ranked Twelve

Sorted by wealth shared
№ 01 01 / 10

Jensen Huang

Nvidia · NASDAQ: NVDA

For every $1 Huang kept, he handed $25 to the rest of the world — index funds, pension systems, 401(k)s, and every kid whose retirement account holds a chunk of NVDA.

Nvidia IPO'd in 1999 at a modest valuation and Huang has never made a large concentrated sale. His stake fell from ~5% to ~3.8% mostly through Nvidia issuing shares for acquisitions and stock compensation. The company's rise from ~$500B (2023) to ~$5T (2026) — much of it in the past 24 months — flowed to index funds and retirement accounts, not to Huang.

Wealth Shared
$4.74T
Shared · 96.2% $4.74T
Kept · 3.8% $187B
№ 02

Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak

Apple · NASDAQ: AAPL

Wealth Shared
$4.30T
Shared · ~100% $4.30T
Kept · ~0% ~$0

The world's largest company, essentially 100% in the hands of everyone but its founders.

Wozniak sold his stake in the early 1980s. Jobs was forced out in 1985 and sold nearly all his shares; when he returned in 1997 he only held about 5.5M shares at his death. His widow Laurene Powell Jobs has diversified out. Result: the entire $4.3T is held by non-founders.

№ 03

Larry Page & Sergey Brin

Alphabet · NASDAQ: GOOGL

Wealth Shared
$3.93T
Shared · 90.5% $3.93T
Kept · 9.5% $412B

$9.5 handed out for every $1 kept — via the famously democratic 2004 Dutch-auction IPO.

Both founders have sold gradually since Google's 2004 IPO, which was conducted via Dutch auction specifically to broaden retail access. They still hold ~52% combined voting power via Class B super-shares, but only ~9.5% economic ownership.

№ 04

Bill Gates & Paul Allen

Microsoft · NASDAQ: MSFT

Wealth Shared
$2.79T
Shared · 98.6% $2.79T
Kept · 1.4% $39B

$72 given to the world for every $1 Gates still holds — largely via the Gates Foundation.

The Gates Foundation Trust fully exited Microsoft in Q1 2026, selling its final $3.2B position. Gates personally still holds ~103M shares. Paul Allen died in 2018; his Vulcan estate has diversified. Add: thousands of "Microsoft millionaires" from decades of employee equity.

№ 05

Elon Musk

Tesla + SpaceX · NASDAQ: TSLA / SPCX

Wealth Shared
$2.48T
Shared · 69.1% $2.48T
Kept · 30.9% $1.11T

The most concentrated founder position in the top ten — and still $2.48T flowed to others.

SpaceX IPO'd June 12, 2026 — the largest IPO ever, at a $1.77T valuation, closing first day at $2.1T. Musk retains ~15% of Tesla and ~42% of SpaceX. He's the first US dollar trillionaire on paper.

№ 06

Jeff Bezos

Amazon · NASDAQ: AMZN

Wealth Shared
$2.34T
Shared · 91.2% $2.34T
Kept · 8.8% $226B

Down from 16% ownership five years ago to 8.8% today — sold his way toward giving more.

Bezos has accelerated selling since 2020, funding Blue Origin, the Bezos Earth Fund, and Day One philanthropy. His 2019 divorce transferred 25% of his shares to MacKenzie Scott, who has since given away over $19B.

№ 07

Morris Chang

TSMC · NYSE: TSM

Wealth Shared
$2.17T
Shared · ~99.5% $2.17T
Kept · ~0.5% ~$11B

~$200 shared for every $1 Chang still holds — one of the most extreme founder-minimization ratios anywhere.

Chang founded TSMC in 1987 at age 55, after decades at Texas Instruments. TSMC IPO'd in 1994; his stake has been small (~0.5%) since well before his 2018 retirement. The vast majority of TSMC's value has always flowed to institutional and Taiwanese public shareholders.

№ 08

Samueli & Nicholas

Broadcom · NASDAQ: AVGO

Wealth Shared
$1.79T
Shared · ~98% $1.79T
Kept · ~2% ~$40B

A caveat: the current $1.8T entity is Avago rebranded — the 2016 merger blurred the original founder story.

Henry Samueli and Henry Nicholas III started Broadcom in 1991 in a California condominium. The 2016 Avago–Broadcom merger meaningfully diluted the original founders' stakes. Samueli remains Chairman and a significant shareholder; Nicholas retains a smaller position. Include with an asterisk on attribution.

№ 09

Mark Zuckerberg

Meta Platforms · NASDAQ: META

Wealth Shared
$1.45T
Shared · 86.4% $1.45T
Kept · 13.6% $228B

Plus a lifetime pledge of 99% of the rest to the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.

The 2012 IPO created significant wealth for early employees and pre-IPO investors. Zuck retains 13.6% economic but ~58% voting via Class B super-shares. The 99% CZI pledge is not yet transferred — counted here as still his stake.

№ 10

Lee Family (Lee Byung-chul, d. 1987)

Samsung Electronics · KRX: 005930

Wealth Shared
$1.10T
Shared · ~95% $1.10T
Kept · ~5% ~$58B

South Korea's most valuable company, ~95% in the hands of foreign institutions, Korean pension funds, and retail investors.

Lee Byung-chul founded Samsung in 1938 as a Korean trading company. The Lee family directly holds ~5% of Samsung Electronics; effective control runs through cross-shareholdings via Samsung C&T and Samsung Life Insurance. Current chairman is Lee Jae-yong, grandson of the founder.

№ 11

Warren Buffett

Berkshire Hathaway · NYSE: BRK.A

Wealth Shared
$907B
Shared · 84.9% $907B
Kept · 15.1% $161B

Took a $19M failing textile mill in 1965. Built it into a $1.07T conglomerate.

Not a founder — Buffett bought control of the dying Berkshire Hathaway textile mill in 1965 and rebuilt the entire company. Someone who bought $1,000 of Berkshire in 1965 has ~$50M today. He's donated ~$60B in stock since 2006.

№ 12

Walton Family (Sam Walton, d. 1992)

Walmart · NYSE: WMT

Wealth Shared
$489B
Shared · 54% $489B
Kept · 46% $417B

Tightest family concentration on this list — and still ~660,000 other shareholders own half of Walmart.

Sam Walton died 1992. Family holds via Walton Enterprises + trusts (including the John Walton charitable trust). Walmart's 1970 IPO followed by five decades as a public company means it's a core holding in every major US index fund.

The Full 50

Global · $33.6T combined

The first twelve rows match the Featured Twelve cards above. Rows 13–50 add ~$5T of additional shared wealth from the next 38 companies.

# Founder / Company Market Cap Kept Shared Note
1Jensen HuangNvidia · NVDA$4.93T$187B (3.8%)$4.74T—
2Jobs † + WozniakApple · AAPL$4.30T~$0 (~0%)$4.30TBoth founders exited
3Larry Page + Sergey BrinAlphabet · GOOGL$4.34T$412B (9.5%)$3.93T—
4Bill Gates + Paul Allen †Microsoft · MSFT$2.83T$39B (1.4%)$2.79TFoundation exited Q1 2026
5Elon MuskTesla + SpaceX · TSLA / SPCX$3.59T$1.11T (30.9%)$2.48TSpaceX IPO'd Jun 12, 2026
6Jeff BezosAmazon · AMZN$2.57T$226B (8.8%)$2.34T—
7Morris ChangTSMC · TSM$2.18T~$11B (~0.5%)$2.17TFounding chairman, retired 2018
8Samueli + NicholasBroadcom · AVGO$1.83T~$40B (~2%)$1.79T⚠Post-2016 Avago merger — attribution murky
9Mark ZuckerbergMeta Platforms · META$1.68T$228B (13.6%)$1.45T—
10Lee familySamsung Electronics · 005930$1.16T~$58B (~5%)$1.10TDirect family stake only
11Warren BuffettBerkshire Hathaway · BRK.A$1.07T$161B (15.1%)$907BBuilder — acquired 1965
12Walton familyWalmart · WMT$906B$417B (46%)$489BSam Walton d. 1992
13Ma Huateng (Pony Ma)Tencent · 0700$530B$42B (8%)$488B—
14Sinegal + Brotman †Costco · COST$423B~$0 (~0%)$423BBoth founders essentially exited
15Marcus † + BlankHome Depot · HD$335B~$0 (~0%)$335BMarcus d. 2024; founders exited
16Reed HastingsNetflix · NFLX$310B~$2B (~1%)$308BExited Netflix June 2026
17Thiel + Karp + CohenPalantir · PLTR$320B~$19B (~6%)$301BFounding trio
18Jack MaAlibaba · BABA$269B~$9B (~3.5%)$260B—
19Larry EllisonOracle · ORCL$400B$160B (40%)$240BHighest founder concentration in top 20
20Toyoda familyToyota · TM$207B~$5B (~2.5%)$202BKiichiro Toyoda founded 1937
21Masayoshi SonSoftBank · 9984$298B$104B (35%)$194B—
22Robin ZengCATL · 300750$239B~$60B (~25%)$179B—
23Arnault familyLVMH · MC$330B$165B (50%)$165BBuilder — LVMH assembled via M&A
24Michael DellDell Technologies · DELL$280B$128B (46%)$152B—
25Bettencourt Meyers familyL'Oréal · OR$231B$80B (34.7%)$150BFounded 1909; heirs of Schüeller
26Kalanick + CampUber · UBER$153B~$3B (<2%)$150BBoth founders exited
27Tobias LütkeShopify · SHOP$159B$10B (6%)$149B—
28Marc BenioffSalesforce · CRM$134B$5B (3.9%)$129B—
29Wang ChuanfuBYD · 002594$119B$20B (17%)$99B—
30Ambani familyReliance Industries · RELIANCE$187B$94B (50%)$94BDhirubhai founded; sons inherited
31Phil Knight familyNike · NKE$120B~$26B (~22%)$94B—
32Colin HuangPDD Holdings · PDD$121B$30B (25%)$91BPinduoduo / Temu
33Warnock † + Geschke †Adobe · ADBE$89B~$0 (~0%)$88BBoth founders deceased
34Lei JunXiaomi · 1810$85B$11B (13%)$73B—
35Hermès familyHermès · RMS$210B$141B (67%)$69BFounded 1837; family control
36Chesky + Blecharczyk + GebbiaAirbnb · ABNB$88B~$19B (~22%)$66BCombined stake estimated
37Piero FerrariFerrari · RACE$68B$7B (10.6%)$61BSon of Enzo Ferrari
38Amancio OrtegaInditex · ITX$145B$86B (59.3%)$59BZara parent
39Forrest LiSea Limited · SE$68B$12B (~18%)$56B—
40Wang XingMeituan · 3690$62B$6B (10%)$56B—
41Ford familyFord Motor · F$56B~$1B (~2%)$55BHenry Ford founded 1903
42Richard LiuJD.com · JD$60B~$7B (11.2%)$53B⚠Market cap estimate
43William DingNetEase · NTES$68B~$20B (~30%)$48B⚠Market cap estimate
44Porsche-Piëch familyVolkswagen · VOW3$70B~$22B (31.4%)$48BBuilder — VW state-founded 1937
45Jack DorseyBlock · XYZ$47B$4B (8%)$43B—
46Brian ArmstrongCoinbase · COIN$49B$7B (14%)$42B—
47David BaszuckiRoblox · RBLX$39B$3B (7%)$36B—
48Michael SaylorStrategy · MSTR$35B$3.5B (10%)$32BBitcoin treasury company
49Robin LiBaidu · BIDU$38B$8B (20%)$30B—
50Eric YuanZoom · ZM$26B$2B (7.7%)$24B—

About

Why this exists

You've heard the story: billionaires are hoarding the world's wealth. They pay no taxes. They exploit labor. They stockpile capital while the rest of us struggle.

Some of that is true.

But there's a missing half to the story — the trillions of dollars these founders and builders have created for people they'll never meet. When a founder takes a company from nothing to $4 trillion in value, they typically hold only a sliver of it. The rest sits in retirement accounts, index funds, pension plans, and brokerage accounts belonging to millions of ordinary people.

Jensen Huang built Nvidia from a garage to nearly $5 trillion. He kept 3.8%. The other $4.74 trillion flowed to everyone else.

Steve Jobs sold nearly all his Apple stock decades ago. Today, essentially 100% of Apple's $4.30 trillion — the world's second-largest company — is held by non-founders. That value found its way into your 401(k), your parents' pension, your city's endowment.

Even at the most concentrated end of the list — Elon Musk keeping ~31% between Tesla and SpaceX — he still handed $2.48 trillion to other people along the way.

What this site is not

What this site is

The math is simple:
Wealth Shared = Company Market Cap − Founder's Personal Stake

Both numbers are current. Both come from public sources. The full methodology, edge cases, and citations live in the Methodology and Sources sections.

If you disagree with the framing, the formula, or an entry — write to us. This project is meant to add a data point to the conversation, not close it.

Methodology

The math and its edge cases

The formula is:
Wealth Shared = Company Market Cap − Founder's Current Personal Stake

Every dollar of a company's value not held by the person who built it is a dollar held by other shareholders — index funds, pension plans, employees, and retail investors. That's "wealth shared."

Definitions

What we don't count

Snapshot dates

Market caps are pulled from tracker sources as of July 14, 2026. Founder ownership comes from the most recent SEC or exchange filings, typically Q1/Q2 2026. SpaceX ownership reflects the post-IPO snapshot from June 12, 2026.

Full source citations are in the footer below.

FAQ

Common critiques · honest answers
But what about founders who reinvest their personal stake into other private ventures they control?

Fair. This critique applies most sharply to Elon Musk, who has retained the largest concentrated stake in the Featured Twelve (~31%) and openly redeploys his personal capital into X, xAI, Neuralink, and the Boring Company. He didn't donate his ~$1.11T stake; he reinvested it in himself.

But it doesn't undo what the number measures. The $2.48T of Tesla + SpaceX equity held by non-Musk shareholders is still real, tradeable value in other people's accounts — index funds, retail investors, pension plans, sovereign wealth funds. Musk kept as much as the capital markets would let him; that ~69% flowed to others regardless of what he does with the ~31%.

The same tension applies less dramatically to Bezos (Blue Origin), Zuckerberg (CZI is still his LLC), and to a degree Gates (his foundation is Gates-directed). It's a real interpretive limit of the "sharing" framing, worth naming plainly: this site measures who owns the value today, not who directed it there through pure benevolence.

What about the employees and engineers who actually built these companies?

They're one of the largest categories of "public" in "wealth shared with the public." Nvidia engineers, Microsoft early hires, Google's first hundred, Meta's IPO-era employees — thousands became millionaires (or hundred-millionaires) through stock compensation. The Puget Sound region still leans wealthy from Microsoft. The Bay Area was reshaped by Google's 2004 IPO and Facebook's 2012 IPO.

When we say Nvidia's $4.74T is "shared," a meaningful chunk of that is employees who exercised options and held. The site doesn't credit them individually, but their holdings sit in the non-founder bucket.

Whether these founders deserve more credit for the total value created — or whether employees were compensated fairly relative to the value they helped create — is a separate argument this site doesn't try to settle.

What about tax avoidance? These founders barely pay taxes on their fortunes.

Different question, different debate. The tax status of founders' personal fortunes is a policy issue independent of how much value they created for other shareholders.

Worth noting though: index funds and pension plans that hold this stock do pay taxes on gains, dividends, and distributions. The Apple in your 401(k) triggers capital gains at retirement. The Google in a state teacher pension fund helps fund public services. Sovereign wealth funds that hold these positions fund public goods for entire nations.

The founders' personal tax situation deserves scrutiny. It's just not what this site is measuring.

Isn't "the public" mostly just other rich people too? 401(k) holdings skew wealthy.

Partly true. About 60% of American households have some retirement-account exposure, but the top 10% hold roughly 55% of the total value. Distribution is uneven.

Pension funds are less skewed — they benefit millions of teachers, firefighters, public employees, and unionized workers whose exposure is more evenly spread. Sovereign wealth funds (Norway, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Alaska) hold substantial positions and return the gains to entire populations.

The point isn't that every ordinary person benefits equally from these founders' wealth creation. It's that most of the value flows to a broader set of people than the founder alone — even if that broader set is still imperfectly distributed.

These companies caused real harm — pollution, monopoly abuse, misinformation, labor exploitation. Doesn't that cancel out the "wealth shared"?

The value creation and the harm are both real, and both deserve honest accounting. This site measures one dimension: financial value distribution. It doesn't measure environmental cost, worker treatment, market concentration, mental-health effects, or political externalities.

A founder can simultaneously (a) create massive financial value that flows to millions of shareholders and (b) have caused documented harm along the way. Amazon is a $2.5T company and has faced serious labor critiques. Meta created enormous shareholder value and published research linking Instagram to teen mental-health harms.

If you think a founder's overall ledger is net-negative once you factor in externalities, this site's data still stands as one input — it just isn't the whole ledger.

Why exclude private companies like ByteDance, Stripe, or SHEIN?

No reliable market cap. Without publicly traded shares, valuations are approximate — usually anchored to the last funding round — don't reflect real-time consensus, and can be inflated or deflated by the company and its investors depending on the story being told that quarter.

SpaceX was excluded from this list until it IPO'd on June 12, 2026. If ByteDance, Stripe, SHEIN, and other private giants went public tomorrow, several would likely land in the top 20. Their absence understates the true total — but the alternative (guessing at valuations) would undermine the data's credibility.