The world's richest people fascinate us. I think it's because we assume there must be some secret in there somewhere — some trait or habit that separates the moderately rich from the almost incomprehensibly rich. So I went looking. Not for a formula, because I don't think there is one, but for the values that actually show up, again and again, in how these ten people talk and act. What follows is what I found, one person at a time.
Bernard Arnault
The richest person in the world is the CEO and chairman of LVMH, the biggest luxury goods company on earth. Estimates of the French national's net worth fluctuate somewhere between $150 and $200 billion depending on how LVMH shares are trading, with the bulk of it held through Financiere Agache's controlling stake in Christian Dior SE, which in turn controls LVMH.
Among the brands under LVMH: Hennessey, Louis Vuitton, Sephora, Marc Jacobs. The main LVMH brand is Christian Dior. Holding company Christian Dior SE controls just over 41% of LVMH.
Values
Arnault told Forbes in a 2010 interview that he sees himself as "an ambassador of French heritage and French culture." And he doesn't just say it. In line with that value, he pledged $226 million to help restore Notre Dame cathedral in Paris after the 2019 fire.
His role model — and here's a nice thread connecting two names on this list — is Warren Buffett, CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. What Arnault admires most is Buffett's patience. Buffett has always stuck to a "buy-and-hold" strategy with investments, favoring patience over daily scrutiny of the markets.
Arnault has come to believe patience is essential for any entrepreneur who wants to succeed. And he's lived it out.
Back in the early 2000s, LVMH began courting the Italian jewelry house Bulgari. It took roughly a decade of patience before that courtship turned into a controlling stake in 2011, through a consensual, all-stock deal that let the Bulgari family keep leadership roles in the business.
Elon Musk
Until recently, the CEO and cofounder of Tesla was the richest person in the world. He's since traded places with rivals more than once as Tesla's stock has swung. Musk's fortune is dominated by his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, and it moves by tens of billions of dollars with the share price — exact figures are a moving target, so treat any single number as a snapshot rather than a fact, and check a live tracker like Forbes Real-Time Billionaires if you want the current picture.
His other assets include the infamously acquired Twitter (now X), The Boring Company, and his majority stake in SpaceX, all held privately.
Values
Musk's main values won't surprise you: idealism, technological innovation, creativity, curiosity, perseverance, attention to detail, freedom, decisiveness.
He's always looking for a new and better way to do things. He's fired people, reportedly, for saying they do things a certain way because "that's how it's always been done." When he interviewed candidates, he'd ask them dozens and dozens of questions in their area of expertise. SpaceX interviews are famously rigorous — candidates have described being grilled for hours on granular engineering details, which lines up with Musk's known preference for testing real depth of understanding over credentials on paper.
Musk has a strikingly detailed memory for past events. Take SpaceX's early Falcon 1 launches from Omelek Island in the Kwajalein Atoll, a stretch plagued by heat, corrosion, and repeated failures. Musk visited often enough that he later told biographer Eric Berger he remembered the island "like the back of my hand."
He's notoriously persistent, too. Turning Tesla and SpaceX into successful companies was an arduous task, and few believed he'd pull it off. The press mocked him extensively. The first attempts to launch SpaceX rockets failed — there were explosions — and none of it deterred him. Tesla had its own serious problems, especially with car parts early on. Musk pushed through every obstacle, believing in his ideas long after everyone else had stopped.
Freedom seems to matter to him too. He promised to reduce censorship and improve freedom of expression on Twitter.
At the other end of the spectrum, though, relationships don't seem to rank as highly. Mary Beth Brown, his assistant and right hand for roughly a decade, was let go not long after asking for a raise, according to Ashlee Vance's biography of Musk — though Musk has publicly disputed that account, saying she left amicably with severance.
His personal life tells a similar story. He and his first wife, Justine, were having marital problems, and she wanted couples' therapy. After only a handful of sessions, Musk reportedly told her, "Either we fix this marriage today or I will divorce you tomorrow," according to Justine's own 2010 essay in Marie Claire. He filed for divorce the next morning.
Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos founded and chairs Amazon, where his remaining stake sits at around 8%. That stake accounts for most of a fortune that's been valued well over $200 billion in 2026. Beyond Amazon, he owns The Washington Post, bought for $250 million back in 2013, and funds Blue Origin, which outside analysts put in the tens of billions of dollars.
Values
Bezos values generosity and gives regularly to charity. He told CNN in 2022 he plans to give away most of his wealth in his lifetime. He recently donated $100 million to Dolly Parton's charity.
He also tends to avoid conflict, valuing cooperation, hard work, and teamwork. He points to teamwork as the main reason for Amazon's success, and he's said as much repeatedly in his shareholder letters — crediting a high bar for hiring as the single most important factor behind the company's growth.
Gautam Adani
Gautam Adani is the richest man in Asia, chairman and founder of Adani Group, a conglomerate that includes:
- Adani Enterprises
- Adani Ports & SEZ
- Adani Green Energy
- Adani Transmission
- Adani Power
- Adani Total Gas
- Adani Oil and Edibles
At his peak in early 2023, before the Hindenburg report, Adani's net worth was estimated around $113 billion, built on majority stakes — roughly 60% to 75%, depending on the entity — across the group's listed companies: Adani Enterprises, Adani Power, Adani Transmission, Adani Ports, Adani Green Energy, and Adani Total Gas.
Values
Mr. Adani values perseverance, and he speaks with real admiration about his role model, Dhirubhai Ambani, who didn't come from a rich family but became a world-class entrepreneur anyway.
Adani is also, by most accounts, good at maintaining relationships. He values loyalty and doesn't backtrack on deals. He doesn't squeeze out partners, believes in freedom of market competition, doesn't block rivals, and respects fair play. If he wants to buy out a shareholder, he pays above market price.
He praises achievement and believes people should stay polite and exercise self-control — and he demonstrated exactly that against the backdrop of a recent scandal. Adani Group lost $70 billion of market value after short-selling firm Hindenburg Research accused the conglomerate of fraud and stock manipulation.
No angry public outburst followed. Instead, he wrote and issued a 413-page document refuting the accusations. Four hundred and thirteen pages. That's not a temper tantrum; that's a value in action.
Adani Group's own published vision statement says it aims "to be a world class leader in businesses that enrich lives and contribute to nations in building infrastructure through sustainable value creation." It's not hard to see the overlap with Mr. Adani's personal values.
Bill Gates
The cofounder of Microsoft holds just under 1.4% of Microsoft directly. The bulk of his roughly $100 to $115 billion net worth, depending on the date you check, is diversified through Cascade Investments rather than sitting in Microsoft stock or cash.
Values
Gates cofounded Microsoft back in 1975 because he wanted to change the world. He values change, yes, but also innovation and growth. He's a cautious man at heart, one who believes prevention is the best form of protection.
He's repeatedly compared pandemic prevention to needing a trained team of "firefighters" ready to respond at outbreak sites — a metaphor he's reached for in op-eds, his book, and television interviews alike.
On free speech, he wants a better balance. He's not in favor of free speech above all else — he points to the risk of disinformation — but believes the digital world is overwhelmingly positive on balance.
He values positivity, too, and tries to make the best of things. Reflecting on his divorce from Melinda Gates, he's spoken of the wonderfulness of having spent his adult life with one person and raised a family together, rather than framing the marriage as a failure.
He's since publicly admitted to extramarital affairs and called his association with Jeffrey Epstein "a huge mistake" and "a grave error in judgment," apologizing for the pain caused to his family.
His other values include curiosity and humility. He's said to have a voracious appetite for knowledge. He's put it plainly himself: "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." I like that line. It's rare to hear from someone at his level.
Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett is CEO of the multinational corporation Berkshire Hathaway. He holds roughly a 15% economic interest in Berkshire Hathaway, which makes up almost all of his fortune — recently estimated at $146 to $151 billion by Forbes and Bloomberg.
Values
It's been argued that Buffett's core values almost entirely account for his success. Three of them: integrity, frugality, trust.
He believes reputation matters more than anything else. In his 1991 Congressional testimony after the Salomon Brothers scandal, he told employees:
Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.
He's said he'd be more forgiving of an employee who lost money for the company than of one who caused it to lose face. Worth sitting with that for a second.
Frugality is a value he shares with a few others on this list. Every company under Berkshire Hathaway is budget-conscious. To Buffett, frugality means avoiding debt, reducing overhead, and running an austere entrepreneurial model.
And finally, he trusts his employees to make decisions at every level of the company. Trust, he believes, sits at the core of leadership. He appreciates employees who bring him bad news early — he'd rather live with a few hasty, costly decisions than with the slow ones, which always carry invisible costs of their own.
Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison is the CTO, chair, and cofounder of Oracle. His fortune, driven mainly by a roughly 40% stake in Oracle, has swung dramatically along with tech stock prices over the years — reported anywhere from around $100 billion to well over $300 billion depending on when you check — and he also holds a Tesla equity stake worth billions.
Values
Ellison values hard work, competition, and generosity. He was CEO of Oracle from 1977 to 2014, stepping down at 70 after a 37-year tenure — one of the longest-serving founder-CEOs in tech history. Retirement doesn't seem to come up. He's still very active today.
Competition props up his hard work. He says it's what keeps him going despite his achievements and his age — he's "addicted to winning," in his own words. He likes testing his limits and champions lifelong learning.
When he signed the Giving Pledge, organized by Buffett and Gates, Ellison revealed plans to give away "at least 95%" of his wealth to charity. It turned out he'd been quietly donating for years already — he only went public about it because Buffett asked him to, to set an example.
And then, paradoxically, he values extravagance too. Ellison doesn't hide owning multiple mansions, yachts, and a private golf course, or funding tennis tournaments. His collections span artwork, cars, airplanes, boats. Both things are true of him at once, and that's worth noticing.
Larry Page
The cofounder of Alphabet (Google) holds roughly 6% of Alphabet. His net worth swings heavily with the share price, and Forbes put it at well over $300 billion in 2026.
Values
Page values the freedom of self-determination above almost everything. His dream was to make Google a workplace that encourages employees to follow their own dreams — and that traces back to his education at Montessori School, where he studied alongside Sergey Brin.
At Montessori, the focus was on "revolutionizing the individual." Founder Maria Montessori believed a child's freedom mattered above all, that children needed room to be active and grow their own agency. Page carried that straight into Google policy, where staff had to dedicate a fifth of their work time to personal projects.
Nikola Tesla was one of Page's childhood heroes, and technological advancement became a value early. After reading a biography of Tesla around age 12, Page was troubled to learn that Tesla — unlike the far wealthier Edison — died in poverty because he never commercialized or kept control of his own inventions. That's when it dawned on Page: if he wanted control of his products, he'd have to start his own business.
Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer, who owns the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers, met Bill Gates at Harvard and joined Microsoft in 1980 as its first business manager, receiving an 8% stake at IPO that's since been diluted to under 4%. His net worth has been estimated at $130 to $146 billion in 2026. He was CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014.
Values
Some of Ballmer's values overlap with others on this list — self-determination like Larry Page, philanthropy and change like Gates. He also values consistency, self-improvement, personal excellence, empowerment, teamwork, shared goals.
There does seem to be a bond running through Microsoft that goes beyond ordinary company dealings. Executives there want to change the world, help people realize their potential, and instill the company's values and mission in everyone who works there. Ballmer's no exception. He wrote in a 2013 memo:
This company has always had a big vision — to help people realize their full potential… for the activities they value the most.
In October 2022, he and his wife Connie donated $500,000 to support California's Proposition 1, a reproductive-rights ballot measure. The couple also donated $1 million in 2020 in support of a California affirmative-action ballot measure.
Carlos Slim Helu
The only person of Hispanic origin on this list holds the majority share of telecom giant America Movil. His other assets include Inmuebles Carso, Grupo Carso, and Grupo Financiero. Slim was the world's richest person by Forbes' ranking from 2010 to 2013; his net worth and global ranking have fluctuated significantly since, dropping out of the top 10 in subsequent years.
Values
Slim values frugality, philanthropy, and patriotism. He's flexible, shrewd. The austerity streak goes back to childhood, when his father had him and his five siblings learn about finance — each child got a notebook to record expenses. Carlos was gifted at math, and by age 12 he'd already started buying shares in the Bank of Mexico.
He's long spoken about a duty to look after the less fortunate rather than the already wealthy. And there's a real business behind that sentiment: America Movil's Telcel brand built its Mexican customer base heavily around prepaid plans, letting subscribers pay only for the airtime they used rather than committing to a monthly bill.
He's donated to various charities over the years. His Carso Foundation has been developing Mexican human resources through training and education programs since 1986.
Patriotism showed up clearly during Mexico's severe economic downturn in 1982. While many Mexican entrepreneurs rushed to move their money out of the country, Slim stayed put — steadfast, in his support of Mexico. He acquired the Sanborn's café and store franchise along with the Mexican branches of General Tire and Reynolds Aluminum. As the economy recovered, his wealth grew, and his acquisitions only accelerated.
Sources
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/012715/5-richest-people-world.asp
https://jdmeier.com/steve-ballmer-on-a-big-vision-to-help-people-realize-their-full-potential/
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