Google co-founders make it into ‘$100 billion club’ as tech giant’s shares soar

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have joined the tiny coterie of people on the planet with fortunes of more than $100 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The exclusive eight-strong "$100 billion club", as it has been called, also counts Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla's Elon Musk and fashion's richest man, LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault, as members.

The Index's latest update suggested that these eight people hold a combined fortune of more than $1 trillion, and have seen their wealth soar by a total of $110 billion this year.

Bezos tops the Bloomberg list with a net worth of $196.6 billion, up $6.3 billion, while Brin is the least wealthy of the uber-elite group, with a net worth of $100.2 billion after seeing his fortunes soar by $20.4 billion in the period.

Google shares have seen a particularly big rally in recent weeks after the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of the tech giant in its $9 billion copyright battle with Oracle.

The case was a landmark one for the tech industry. The Supreme Court ruled that Google did not break the law when it copied Oracle-owned software interfaces for its Android OS.

Back in 2017, Bezos became the first person to net $100 billion since Bill Gates, who reached the milestone in1999.