Methodology
Billionaire Tracker turns public wealth estimates into something you can feel: a live counter of how much a fortune changes every second. Here is exactly where every number comes from.
1. Billionaire net worth (live)
For every person on Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires list — currently 3,401 people — we use Forbes' live estimate. Forbes values public stakes at the latest share price and private assets periodically. We re-fetch the full list every 15 minutes. If Forbes is unreachable, we fall back to the last snapshot we saved and the page says so.
The “Today” figure is the change against Forbes' previous-day estimate. The rank is Forbes' live rank.
2. “Per second” for billionaires: net worth growth
A billionaire's salary is a rounding error; their fortune moves with their shares. So for billionaires “makes per second” means the average change in net worth per second:
(live net worth − net worth on the last annual Forbes list at least ~10 months old) ÷ seconds elapsed
The baseline is Forbes' annual World's Billionaires list (published each spring), so the window covers roughly one to two years. Example: Elon Musk was worth $342 billion on Forbes' April 2025 list and $849.7 billion on November 7, 2026, which averages $10,044 per second. If a fortune shrank, we show the loss in red rather than hiding it.
3. Celebrities: annual earnings
For celebrities and athletes, “makes per second” means pre-tax annual earnings ÷ 31,557,600 (the seconds in a year). Earnings come from Forbes' highest-paid lists (athletes, entertainers, creators) where available. Each profile names the source and the period it covers.
Celebrities who are billionaires (for example Taylor Swift, Rihanna or Michael Jordan) use Forbes' live net worth. For non-billionaires, net worth is a sourced estimate — usually Forbes or Celebrity Net Worth — with the month it was last checked shown on the page. Figures with weaker sourcing are flagged internally and reviewed first.
4. Comparisons
“Typical US worker” comparisons use the median full-time weekly earnings reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (about $63,128 a year). Item prices in the spending game are typical 2026 US list prices or widely reported valuations.
5. Limits
- Net worth is an estimate. Private companies, debt and family trusts are hard to value from the outside.
- Per-second figures are averages over months; real fortunes jump around with markets.
- Paper wealth is not cash. Selling a large stake would move its price and trigger taxes.
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