The Global Landscape of Young Wealth: Meet the World's Youngest Billionaires

In an era when most of their peers are just starting their professional journeys, a select few individuals in the youngest billionaire in the world category have already amassed extraordinary fortunes. These five individuals represent a fascinating mix of inherited wealth and self-made success across diverse sectors including industrial manufacturing, luxury eyewear, pharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence, and digital gaming. According to Forbes Middle East’s 2025 list, the youngest billionaire in the world isn’t necessarily a self-made entrepreneur—some inherited vast family empires, while others built their wealth from scratch through innovation and strategic vision.

The rise of ultra-wealthy individuals before age 30 reveals intriguing patterns about modern wealth accumulation: some leveraged family legacies and institutional structures built over generations, while others disrupted emerging industries at precisely the right moment. Understanding their stories provides insight into how wealth concentration works in the contemporary global economy.

From Inheritance to Innovation: The Path to Billionaire Status at 20

Two of the world’s youngest billionaires—Lívia Voigt de Assis and Clemente Del Vecchio—both reached billionaire status by age 20 through family inheritances rather than active business operations. This demonstrates how significant family wealth can accelerate individuals into the billionaire ranks through structured financial instruments like family trusts and strategic stock ownership.

Both inherited commanding stakes in multinational corporations with established market positions and global revenue streams. Their paths illustrate how generational wealth transfer, when properly structured through holding companies and diversified investments, can instantly establish individuals as major financial players despite their youth and limited personal business experience.

The Industrial Dynasty: Lívia Voigt de Assis’s $1.2 Billion Legacy

Brazilian billionaire Lívia Voigt de Assis holds a significant 3.1% stake in WEG Industries, a multinational manufacturing powerhouse specializing in electric motors, automation systems, and energy technology solutions. The company, originally co-founded by her grandfather Werner Ricardo Voigt, operates as one of Brazil’s most valuable industrial firms and maintains a prominent listing on the country’s stock exchange.

Though Voigt de Assis maintains no active executive role in daily operations, her $1.2 billion net worth flows directly from family trust arrangements and long-term stock ownership in this established industrial conglomerate. Alongside her sister, who holds an identical 3.1% stake, she represents the next generation of stewardship for one of Brazil’s most influential industrial dynasties. Her situation exemplifies how structured wealth preservation through family entities enables young heirs to secure billionaire status without requiring operational expertise or business experience.

Luxury Through Generations: Clemente Del Vecchio’s Ray-Ban Fortune

Italian heir Clemente Del Vecchio ascended to billionaire status at just 18 years old following the 2022 passing of his father, Leonardo Del Vecchio, the visionary founder of Luxottica—the eyewear empire that controls globally recognized brands including Ray-Ban and Oakley. His inheritance package includes a commanding 12.5% stake in Delfin, the family holding company that maintains controlling interests in EssilorLuxottica while also managing substantial investments across insurance and banking sectors.

Despite holding no formal executive position, Del Vecchio’s $6.6 billion net worth reflects the substantial value embedded within well-structured family trust arrangements. His situation is not unique within his family; his older half-brothers, Luca and Leonardo Maria, also joined the billionaire ranks through comparable inheritance structures. This generational wealth transfer in the eyewear and luxury goods sectors demonstrates how established consumer brands and holding company structures can create billionaire-status outcomes for multiple heirs simultaneously.

Pharma Wealth Across Borders: Johannes von Baumbach’s $5.4 Billion

At age 19, Johannes von Baumbach represents the youngest known heir to Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim pharmaceutical fortune. This family-owned company ranks among Germany’s largest pharmaceutical enterprises, with a global reputation built on innovations in human medicine, veterinary pharmaceuticals, and advanced healthcare solutions.

The Boehringer Ingelheim organization maintains its founding family’s low public profile, with operational leadership remaining with his uncle Hubertus von Baumbach. Johannes von Baumbach’s $5.4 billion net worth derives from his stake in a pharmaceutical legacy spanning multiple generations of family-directed innovation and market leadership. Outside his family’s business interests, he reportedly pursues competitive skiing based in Austria. His pathway to billionaire status reflects how inheritance of stakes in established pharmaceutical enterprises—particularly those generating steady revenue from global healthcare markets—can rapidly establish individuals as members of the ultra-wealthy elite despite minimal business involvement.

Self-Made Success: How Alexandr Wang Became a Youngest Billionaire Entrepreneur

Among the youngest billionaire in the world cohort, Alexandr Wang stands out as a self-made wealth creator rather than an inheritance beneficiary. At 28, Wang co-founded Scale AI, a company specializing in data labeling infrastructure for training AI models and supporting autonomous vehicle development. His entrepreneurial trajectory diverged sharply from the inherited-wealth path when he chose to leave MIT as a freshman.

Launching Scale AI in 2016 alongside co-founder Lucy Guo, Wang built the company into an industry essential, attracting high-profile clients spanning Meta, Microsoft, and General Motors. The company’s recent $1 billion funding round valued the enterprise at $13.8 billion, while Wang’s approximately 14% ownership stake established his $2 billion net worth. His success exemplifies how identifying critical infrastructure needs within rapidly evolving AI markets—combined with early execution and strategic partnerships—enables entrepreneurs to achieve billionaire status before age 30.

Crypto Casinos and Global Reach: Ed Craven’s Billion-Dollar Vision

Ed Craven, a 29-year-old Australian entrepreneur, achieved self-made billionaire status as co-founder of Stake.com, a rapidly expanding online casino platform specializing in cryptocurrency gambling. Working alongside partner Bijan Tehrani, Craven transformed the platform into a global revenue generator, producing $4.7 billion in revenue in its most recent reporting period.

Despite facing regulatory headwinds in jurisdictions including the United States and United Kingdom, Stake.com achieved remarkable market penetration through strategic partnerships with livestreamers and digital influencers. The platform’s operational scale is reflected in estimates indicating it processes up to 4% of all global Bitcoin transactions, underscoring its substantial position within cryptocurrency commerce ecosystems. Craven’s $2.8 billion net worth illustrates how identifying emerging digital markets, building platforms for cryptocurrency transactions, and capturing first-mover advantages in underserved jurisdictions can generate billionaire-scale wealth within a single generation.

Youth and Wealth: Common Patterns Among the Richest Young Billionaires

Examining these five youngest billionaires globally reveals two distinct pathways to ultra-wealth before age 30. The first pathway leverages inheritance of established family enterprises—industrial machinery (Voigt de Assis), luxury goods (Del Vecchio), and pharmaceuticals (von Baumbach)—where institutional structures and market positions were already established across multiple decades or generations. These individuals achieved billionaire status through financial instruments and ownership structures rather than through direct business management or innovation.

The second pathway involves self-made wealth creation by identifying emerging technology and market opportunities—artificial intelligence infrastructure (Wang) and cryptocurrency commerce (Craven)—where rapid expansion and strategic positioning in nascent markets enabled rapid wealth accumulation. These youngest billionaire entrepreneurs disrupted established industries or created entirely new market categories, achieving comparable wealth levels through operational involvement and strategic vision rather than inherited structures.

Both pathways demonstrate how modern capitalism enables wealth concentration at increasingly younger ages, whether through institutional preservation of family fortunes or through entrepreneurial capture of transformational technology trends. The diversity of industries—from traditional manufacturing to cutting-edge AI—alongside the mix of inherited and self-made fortunes suggests that multiple routes to billionaire status exist for individuals entering their professional lives in the 2020s.