The continued rapid rally in tech stocks, driven largely by quarantine measures against COVID-19, has pushed the number of people in the world with a fortune of more than $ 100 billion to eight – last week, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey joined the list. Brin (Sergey Brin).

Larry Page and Sergey Brin (James Leynse | Corbis Historical | Getty Images)

American tech entrepreneurs represent the lion’s share of the people in the exclusive club, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. The eight richest people in the world together have a fortune of more than $ 1 trillion and over the past year have become rich by another $ 110 billion.

In 2017, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos became the first to hit the $ 100 billion milestone since Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in 1999. Then Mr. Gates’s wealth plummeted with the bursting of the dot-com bubble, and he regained his $ 100 billion fortune title in 2019 alone. Tesla’s Elon Musk and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg joined the list last year as the tech industry boosted wealth and the pandemic has accelerated the transition to online technology.

US stocks climbed to new all-time highs last Friday amid optimism about the economic recovery. The technology-focused Nasdaq 100 Index rose more than 7% in 2021, and Google’s parent company Alphabet has gained more traction in the past two weeks after winning a copyright ruling. Larry Page and Sergey Brin each added more than $ 2021 billion to their fortunes in 20 alone.

Warren Buffett (Alphabet) briefly hit the $ 100 billion mark in March before leaving the list again last week. At the same time, Bernard Arnault of the French luxury goods group LVMH has been a member of the elite group since 2019.