Sergey Brin, a cofounder of Google, has become the world’s third-richest person.
Thus, overtaking Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Oracle chairman Larry Ellison.
The jump in Mr. Brin’s fortune came as shares of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, rose to a fresh record, according to Forbes.
Alphabet became only the fourth company to reach a $4 trillion valuation, joining Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple, though the latter two have since slipped below that level.
A breakdown
Alphabet’s shares climbed as much as 2.4% earlier in the session before settling up about 1.3% by Tuesday afternoon, trading just above $337.
The gains extended a strong rally that has seen the stock rise 6.6 percent over the past seven trading sessions. In 2025, Alphabet’s shares surged roughly 65 percent, marking the company’s biggest annual increase since 2009.
Meanwhile, shares of Oracle fell about 1.5 percent, and Amazon declined nearly 2 percent, contributing to the reshuffling among the world’s wealthiest individuals.
According to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List, Mr. Brin’s net worth rose by about $4.9 billion to an estimated $255.6 billion, placing him behind only Tesla chief executive Elon Musk and Google cofounder Larry Page. Mr. Page’s fortune is estimated at roughly $277 billion, while Mr. Musk remains the world’s richest person, with wealth exceeding $700 billion.
Mr. Bezos now ranks fourth, with a net worth estimated at $253.2 billion, followed closely by Mr. Ellison at approximately $251.3 billion.
Investor enthusiasm around Alphabet has been fueled in part by a new partnership with Apple. On Monday, Apple said it would rely on Google’s Gemini system as the foundation for its artificial intelligence models and for the next generation of Siri, its virtual assistant.
What you should know
The announcement was widely seen as a significant endorsement of Google’s AI capabilities and helped push Alphabet’s shares to new highs.
Alphabet has increasingly positioned itself as a leader in artificial intelligence, even as skepticism has grown over whether AI-related technology stocks are overvalued. In November, Google released Gemini 3, the latest iteration of its AI model, drawing favourable reactions from developers and analysts.
Weeks earlier, the company unveiled Ironwood, its seventh generation of custom AI chips, showing its ambition to compete more directly with Nvidia in AI infrastructure.
Brin, who owns fewer Alphabet shares than Mr. Page, has been more active in recent years in selling stock and donating substantial portions of his wealth, including shares in Alphabet and Tesla, to support research into Parkinson’s disease.
In 2025, Nairametrics reported that Alphabet Inc. disclosed plans to invest about $75 billion in expanding its data centre capacity, showing the scale of its long-term bet on artificial intelligence.
