In this file photo taken on Oct 7, 2004, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page (left) address a press conference at the Frankfurt Book Fair. (JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP)

The rally in tech shares has taken the number of people with fortunes of more than US$100 billion to eight.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin joined the exclusive club last week, entering a group dominated by US tech entrepreneurs, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The world’s eight richest people together hold fortunes of more than US$1 trillion and have added US$110 billion combined this year.

The world’s eight richest people together hold fortunes of more than US$1 trillion and have added US$110 billion combined this year

In 2017, Amazon.com Inc’s Jeff Bezos was the first to hit the US$100 billion milestone since Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates back in 1999. Gates’s wealth then slumped with the dot-com bubble burst, and he regained the title of centibillionaire only in 2019. Tesla Inc’s Elon Musk and Facebook Inc’s Mark Zuckerberg joined the club last year as the tech industry led a boost in wealth creation with the coronavirus pandemic accelerating a switch to online.

Billionaires with wealth of at least US$100 billion are mostly US-based. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and other progressive lawmakers recently revived plans to introduce a wealth tax, though the proposal is unlikely to go anywhere in a narrowly divided Congress.

US shares climbed to a fresh record Friday on optimism over the economic recovery. The tech-focused Nasdaq 100 Index has risen more than 7 percent this year, with Google parent Alphabet Inc rallying for the past two weeks as it won a copyright ruling. Page and Brin have added more than US$20 billion each to their wealth this year, some of the biggest gains.

Warren Buffett briefly reached the US$100 billion mark in March before hitting it again last week, while Bernard Arnault of France’s luxury group LVMH has been part of the elite group on and off since 2019.

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