AI is creating a new billionaire class with a record number of founders under 30

Artificial intelligence is rewriting the script on how we work and build wealth, but the story reads very differently depending on who you are. For most young professionals just starting out, the rise of AI brings a distinct sense of unease. There is a real fear that entry-level jobs, the traditional stepping stones of a career, are disappearing or evolving faster than anyone can keep up with. But flip the coin, and you find a much smaller, hyper-successful group of young people for whom AI is not a threat, but a rocket ship. In 2025, we are seeing a historic shift. According to an analysis by Forbes, more people under 30 are becoming self-made billionaires than ever before.

It is a stark illustration of the current moment, a time of immense promise for a few, and deep uncertainty for the many.

A record-breaking surge in under-30 billionaires

This year, 13 young entrepreneurs in their twenties joined the ultra-wealthy club, nearly double the previous record. But what is truly striking is the speed at which this happened.Eleven of these founders crossed the billion-dollar threshold in just the last few months of the year. It was not a slow climb.

It was a vertical leap.The catalyst was late-stage funding rounds, where investors eager not to miss the next big thing poured money into these startups.The whiplash was real. For many of these founders, years of quiet grinding in obscurity were followed by sudden global recognition. They went from working on a project to managing billion-dollar valuations in the blink of an eye.

Why AI is the golden ticket

Why is this happening now? The nature of wealth creation has fundamentally changed.In the past, building a billion-dollar empire usually required factories, supply chains and thousands of employees. Today, AI allows a tiny team to create massive value with very little physical infrastructure. If you have the right code and the right position in the AI ecosystem, you can scale globally almost instantly.This compresses decades of traditional business growth into a window of just a few years. The founders leading this charge are digital natives, people who grew up on the internet, for whom coding is as natural as speaking, and who see AI as a foundational tool to fix everything from coding bugs to hiring headaches.

Spotlight: From ballerina to billionaire

Perhaps the most fascinating story in this new class of billionaires belongs to Luana Lopes Lara.Now the youngest female self-made billionaire under 30, her journey was anything but linear. Before she was a tech mogul, she was an artist.Born in Brazil, Luana trained as a professional ballerina and performed in Europe. It takes a rare kind of person to possess the discipline required for professional dance and the analytical mindset needed for high-level engineering.She eventually traded her pointe shoes for problem-solving, studying at MIT and cofounding Kalshi, a prediction market startup, with fellow student Tarek Mansour. When Kalshi recently hit an $11 billion valuation, her life changed almost overnight, proving that the path to tech success does not always start in a computer lab.This surge of young wealth is a signal that the cycles of technology and success are accelerating. If AI continues to reshape the economy, founders even younger than 20 could soon join these ranks.