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American billionaire Michael Dell moved back ahead of Mark Zuckerberg to become the world's fifth-richest person on Monday, as technology stocks recovered from a week of heavy selling driven by worries over spending on artificial intelligence.
Dell's net worth rose about $4.3 billion to $241.3 billion by early afternoon in New York. Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of Meta Platforms Inc., was worth about $240.7 billion, leaving the two men about $600 million apart.
Shares of Dell Technologies Inc., the Round Rock, Texas-based maker of computers, servers and data storage equipment, rose about 2%, trading near $462.64 in the morning. Dell founded the company in 1984 as a student at the University of Texas at Austin and still runs it as chairman and chief executive officer. He owns about 40% of it, so its share price drives most of the swings in his fortune.
He also gained from a 2.4% rise in Broadcom Inc., the chipmaker in which he holds a large stake. Dell received Broadcom shares when the company bought VMware Inc., the software maker in which he was the largest shareholder, in 2023.
Meta shares fell about 1.1% ahead of the company's third-quarter results on Wednesday. Options trading implies investors expect the stock to move about 6% in either direction after the report.
A rough week for AI stocks
Monday's gain recovered only a small part of what Dell lost last week. On Oct. 14, his fortune fell by more than $20 billion in a single day, to $256.6 billion, after Barclays Plc cut its rating on Dell Technologies to equal weight from overweight. The bank cited the stock's valuation and possible pressure on server and storage sales as memory prices normalize. Dell Technologies closed 11.27% lower that day, and the drop pushed its founder from fourth to fifth in the global wealth rankings, behind Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
Losses continued through the rest of the week as investors questioned how AI data center construction will be paid for and whether demand for the equipment will hold up. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 4.5% last week, its worst weekly drop since June, and Dell's fortune dropped to about $237 billion before Monday's rebound, briefly leaving him behind Zuckerberg.
U.S. inflation data added to the pressure. Consumer prices rose 0.6% in September from August, and the annual rate climbed to 3.7%, above economists' forecasts, as energy prices rose.
On Monday, investors bought back into chip and AI-related stocks. Intel Corp. rose 5.5% after a JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgrade, and gains spread to Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Micron Technology Inc. and Broadcom. The Nasdaq rose about 1% in morning trading.
An AI-driven fortune
Even after the recent slide, Dell's wealth has grown faster than almost anyone's over the past year. He was worth $97.7 billion in September 2025, and his fortune has risen by more than $140 billion since then as companies building AI systems bought his company's servers in large volumes.
Last month his net worth briefly rose above $270 billion, making him the world's second-richest person behind Elon Musk.
Zuckerberg's fortune is tied mainly to his stake in Meta, whose shares fell in July after second-quarter results showed a sharp drop in free cash flow because of spending on AI. In September, Meta released an AI assistant that was downloaded millions of times in the weeks that followed.
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