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American technology billionaire Michael Dell has added $107 billion to his fortune in 2026, a gain surpassed only by Elon Musk's, after shares in the company he founded hit record highs on the back of surging demand for artificial intelligence servers.
Dell is worth $247 billion and ranks fifth on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, behind Musk, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos and Sergey Brin. He began the year ranked 11th. Musk leads the index at $922 billion, up $303 billion this year.
What drives the fortune
Dell's wealth rests on a stake of roughly 40 percent in Dell Technologies, a large holding in Broadcom, and cash. He acquired the Broadcom position after the chipmaker bought VMware, which had been spun out of Dell.
Dell Technologies shares are up more than 300 percent this year, among the strongest performances by any large-cap US stock. Broadcom traded lower on Thursday, partly offsetting the day's gain.
The quarter behind the move
Dell Technologies beat second-quarter revenue and earnings estimates on Wednesday, reporting record quarterly revenue in its Infrastructure Solutions Group and record revenue in AI-optimized servers, traditional servers and networking, and commercial client.
The company said its AI server business booked a record $60.9 billion in orders during the quarter and closed the period with a record $95 billion backlog. Third-quarter guidance for both revenue and earnings per share came in above analyst expectations.
Chief operating officer Jeff Clarke has framed the opportunity as a market worth more than $1 trillion through 2030, driven by inference workloads and enterprise adoption.
Context on the run
Dell Technologies drew unusual political attention earlier this year when US President Donald Trump praised the company publicly and urged consumers to buy its products. It later emerged that Trump held shares in the company.
Dell first became a billionaire three decades ago. He is one of a small group of people with fortunes above $200 billion.
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