Sergey Brin becomes world's third richest person as Alphabet hits $4T Google co-founder Sergey Brin has surged past Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison to claim the title of the world's third-wealthiest person, according to Forbes, following Alphabet Inc. crossing the $4 trillion market capitalization threshold on Monday. The shift in rankings reflects Alphabet's extraordinary stock performance, with shares climbing roughly 65% in 2025 and gaining an additional 6% in the first weeks of 2026. Brin, who holds approximately 6% of Alphabet, now trails only Elon Musk and fellow Google co-founder Larry Page in the global wealth hierarchy. AI Boom Fuels Alphabet's Rise Alphabet's ascent to the $4 trillion club, joining only Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple among companies to ever reach that threshold, came amid growing investor enthusiasm for the company's artificial intelligence initiatives. The stock surge intensified Monday after Apple announced it would use Google's Gemini models to power future Apple Intelligence features and a more personalized version of Siri. The multi-year collaboration marks a major endorsement of Alphabet's AI capabilities. The company's November 2025 launch of Gemini 3, its latest large language model, was widely praised by analysts who said it positions Google competitively against rivals like OpenAI. Bank of America Securities analysts called Gemini 3 "another positive step" in bridging the "perceived LLM performance gap" with competitors. Tech Wealth Reshuffles According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Page and Brin were the year's biggest wealth gainers after Musk, adding approximately $101 billion and $92 billion to their fortunes respectively in 2025. Their combined wealth now exceeds $530 billion. The rankings represent a dramatic reversal from just months ago. In early 2025, Brin ranked sixth among global billionaires. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who briefly surpassed Musk as the world's richest person last September when his fortune ballooned to $388 billion, has seen investors cool on Oracle's AI prospects, pushing his net worth down to around $251 billion. California Exodus Amid Wealth Tax The wealth surge comes as both Brin and Page appear to be scaling back their presence in California ahead of a proposed state wealth tax targeting billionaires. According to The New York Times, Brin moved more than a dozen entities out of the state in the final days of 2025 before the tax would take effect on January 1. Alphabet's market valuation milestone marks the first time since 2019 that the company has surpassed Apple in total market value, signaling what analysts describe as a broader shift from the "Mobile Era" dominated by Apple to an "Intelligence Era" centered on artificial intelligence capabilities.
