Managing Editor
Predictions market lines on who will hold the title of “World’s Richest Person” at the end of 2025 have become a lot more interesting after heavy favorite Elon Musk briefly lost his lead. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison edged out Elon Musk by a “mere” $9 billion for part of the day on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg.
Kalshi’s market launched in November 2024 and asks who will be the richest on December 31, 2025. Except for those few hours this week, Musk has been ahead the whole way. Just before Ellison’s moment of glory, Musk’s odds had crept up over 90%.
Upon the news that he’d lost the crown, the odds plummeted from 91% to a low of 64% before beginning to recover. In a perfectly liquid market, these percentages would equate to the value of a Yes share in cents. In practice, however, they reflect an average of the ask and offer prices, which often differ by a few cents.
Both men’s wealth is heavily tied up in their stakes in their respective flagship companies — Oracle for Ellison, and Tesla for Musk. Things had been looking up for Musk, as his falling out with President Trump has been a boon for Tesla stock. Its share prices had cratered from a high of $488.54 to less than $240 in April due to Tesla boycotts resulting from his involvement with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. His odds of finishing the year as the richest man also bottomed out around 70% at that time.
Tesla stock has rebounded to nearly $400 since he pulled away from the White House, however. Until Wednesday, his Kalshi odds were following suit. However, Oracle’s involvement with OpenAI has nearly doubled its share price over the same six-month period.
The question now is, effectively, which company can keep its rally going.
Polymarket Offers ‘Richest Person’ Contracts Belatedly
Musk’s comfortable lead had made the Kalshi market a bit of a boring one until this week. However, the sudden flurry of trading has prompted Polymarket to launch its own version of the contracts.
Trading on Polymarket has been available for less than 24 hours. However, Musk’s lead in the early trading is smaller than it is on Kalshi. It has mostly hovered around 60%, with brief trips as high as 71% and as low as 55%.
Although big spreads between Polymarket and Kalshi sometimes represent attractive opportunities for arbitrage, some caution is warranted here.
Arbitrage is only truly risk-free when the markets are identical. Although Polymarket’s contracts have the same settlement date as Kalshi’s — December 31, 2025 — the choice of authority is different.
The Kalshi market will settle based on which person Forbes says is the richest on the final day of the year. However, Polymarket will use Bloomberg’s determination.
The differences between the two are significant. Most significantly, it was only Bloomberg that deemed Ellison to have taken the lead this week, while he was only “catching up” according to Forbes.
They currently agree on the order of the top six billionaires, but Forbes has Jensen Huang in seventh, while Bloomberg lists Steve Ballmer in that spot, while listing Huang as number nine.
As of this writing, Forbes has Musk back in the lead by a comfortable $107.4 billion, while Bloomberg pegs the difference at just $36 billion. Forbes puts his personal wealth at around $460 billion, while Bloomberg gives him just under $400 billion.
That difference in margins means it would be entirely possible for Musk to win the race in Kalshi’s eyes, but lose to Ellison on Polymarket.
Who Else is in the Running for Richest Person?
No one else is within $200 billion of Musk according to Forbes, or within $100 billion according to Bloomberg.
However, stock markets are volatile, especially when it comes to AI and politically controversial electric vehicles. A lot could still happen between now and the end of the year.
Both markets have Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg as the third-place candidate, at 6%. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is likewise in the running. He’s at 4% on Kalshi and 5% on Polymarket.
Jensen Huang and Warren Buffet also have an outside chance.
Image Credit: Oracle PR via Flickr (license)
