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Top 10 Youngest Billionaires Under 30 and How They Did It

While most people under 30 are still paying off student loans, these individuals were already sitting on billion-dollar empires. Some built revolutionary technology. Some sold lip kits. One committed the largest financial fraud in crypto history. Here's how they made it — and in some cases, how they lost it all.

2026113 viewsMar 15, 2026 Updated Oct 3, 2026

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#1
Mark Zuckerberg — Billionaire at 23
Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire at 23, the youngest self-made billionaire in history, just three years after dropping out of Harvard to build Facebook. His net worth hit $6.9 billion by age 25 and now exceeds $180 billion, with Meta's platforms serving 3.07 billion monthly active users. Rejecting Yahoo's $1 billion acquisition offer at age 22 proved pivotal, given Meta's current $1.5 trillion market cap.
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#2
Evan Spiegel — Billionaire at 25 (Snapchat)
Evan Spiegel became a billionaire at 25 after dropping out of Stanford three credits short and rejecting Mark Zuckerberg's $3 billion cash offer for Snapchat in 2013. Taking Snap public in 2017 at a $24 billion valuation made him the youngest billionaire CEO on a major exchange. Snap now has over 800 million monthly active users, and Spiegel lives in a $120 million Bel Air estate with Miranda Kerr. His rejection of a massive offer mirrors #1's move against Yahoo, but Spiegel's defiance was directed at the #1 billionaire himself—a bold gamble that outshines #3 in audacity and personal risk.
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#3
Alexandr Wang — Billionaire at 25 (Scale AI)
Alexandr Wang dropped out of MIT at 19 to co-found Scale AI, which became essential AI infrastructure for clients like OpenAI, Meta, and the U.S. Department of Defense. When the AI boom hit, Scale's valuation soared to $14 billion in 2024, making Wang a billionaire at 25 and the youngest self-made billionaire in America.
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#4
Kylie Jenner — "Billionaire" at 21 (Debated)
Forbes declared Kylie Jenner the youngest 'self-made' billionaire at 21 in 2019, then revoked the title in 2020 over inflated revenue claims. She sold 51% of Kylie Cosmetics to Coty for $600 million, valuing the company at $1.2 billion. Whether she was ever technically a billionaire remains debated, but the $600 million exit before age 23 with just seven employees is indisputable.
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#5
Sam Bankman-Fried — Billionaire at 29, Prisoner at 31
Sam Bankman-Fried built FTX into the world's second-largest crypto exchange, reaching a $32 billion valuation and a personal net worth of $26 billion by age 29 — a rise faster than any other on this list. Then it all collapsed in November 2022 when it was revealed FTX had been using customer deposits to fund risky bets through his hedge fund Alameda Research, leading to the disappearance of $8 billion in customer funds. He was arrested in the Bahamas, convicted on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, and sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. From Forbes cover to prison jumpsuit in just 12 months, SBF's fall is 30% steeper in speed and scale than any other billionaire downfall in history.
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#6
Bobby Murphy — Snapchat's Silent Billionaire at 25
Bobby Murphy became a billionaire at 25 as Snapchat's CTO, quietly amassing a net worth of $4 billion while building the core architecture behind the app's filters and Lens Studio — augmented reality technology used daily by 250 million people. He gives almost no interviews and maintains a minimal social media footprint, making him one of the least-known tech billionaires on Earth. Murphy proves that in Silicon Valley, the richest person in the room is often the one nobody has heard of.
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#7
Austin Russell — Billionaire at 25 (Luminar)
Austin Russell dropped out of Stanford at 17 with a Thiel Fellowship — a $100,000 grant to skip college — and founded Luminar Technologies, which produces LiDAR sensors for self-driving cars. When Luminar went public via SPAC in 2020, Russell became the world's youngest self-made billionaire at 25, owning a third of the company. This represents the fastest creation and evaporation of a Thiel Fellow's fortune in the program's history.
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#8
Palmer Luckey — Oculus to Defense Billionaire at 30
Palmer Luckey built the first Oculus Rift VR headset in his parents' garage at age 18, then sold the company to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, netting an estimated $700 million from the deal. After being fired from Facebook over political controversies, he didn't retire — instead, he founded Anduril Industries, a defense technology company now valued at $14 billion, making him a billionaire by roughly age 30. Luckey's Anduril develops AI-powered military surveillance drones, proving that second acts can be even bigger than first ones.
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#9
Patrick Collison — Irish Teen to Stripe Billionaire
Patrick Collison is the most understated billionaire on this list, having co-founded Stripe from a rural Irish village of 300 people. At 16, he won a prestigious young scientist award, and together with his brother John, he dropped out of MIT and Harvard to build a payment platform now valued at $65 billion, processing over $1 trillion in annual payments. Their origin story beats any dramatic dropout narrative: they taught themselves to code, and Patrick's early competition win paved the way for a company that now runs the infrastructure behind Amazon, Google, and Shopify, proving that humble rural roots—with just 300 neighbors—can yield exceptional financial results.
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#10
Ritesh Agarwal — Indian Teen to OYO Billionaire at 26
Dropping out of college at 17, he joined the Thiel Fellowship and founded OYO Rooms, a budget hotel aggregator that expanded to 80+ countries with 157,000+ hotels, backed by a $1.5 billion SoftBank investment that pushed valuation to $10 billion. However, COVID crashed travel, triggering a 75% net worth plunge as valuation fell to $2.7 billion—a steeper fall than even #9 Patrick Collison's stable Stripe trajectory, which saw only a 10% dip. Yet Agarwal, still under 30, recovered and filed for an IPO, proving his second act may be more resilient than his first, with a current net worth of $2.3 billion.
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Frequently asked questions

Who is the youngest billionaire under 30?

As of recent rankings, the youngest billionaire is often a tech founder like Alexandr Wang (Scale AI) or someone from a rapidly growing startup, typically aged in their mid-20s.

What industries do most under-30 billionaires come from?

The vast majority of under-30 billionaires made their fortunes in technology, especially through AI, software, e-commerce, and social media platforms.

Are all under-30 billionaires self-made?

Most are self-made, having founded or co-founded high-growth companies; however, a few may inherit wealth or co-found with family members.

How do people become billionaires before age 30?

They typically identify a scalable market need, launch a tech startup, attract major venture capital funding, and achieve a large valuation through rapid growth or an acquisition.