California‘s San Francisco Bay Area has solidified its status as the world’s indisputable billionaire hub, extending its lead over New York City within a 12-month period, according to a new study.
The West Coast technology center is now home to a staggering 82 billionaires, compared with the Big Apple’s 66, according to the fourth annual “2025 World’s Wealthiest Cities Report,” which was released by investment consulting firm Henley & Partners in collaboration with global data intelligence firm New World Wealth.
In a span of a year, the Bay Area, which is home to the likes of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Larry Page, saw a 20% surge in the number of billionaires residing in the region, rising from 68 to 82, according to Henley & Partners’ 2024 report. Meanwhile, New York City’s billionaire growth rate was just 10%, inching up from 60 to 66.
“The concentration of the tech industry and recent strong performance of tech stocks have created significant wealth in the Bay Area,” says Realtor.com® senior economic research analyst Hannah Jones. “The Bay is dense with high-growth tech firms, which both grows and attracts billionaires.”
Additionally, the Bay Area ranked No. 2 in the world for the number of resident millionaires, at 342,400. It also came in second place for the number of centimillionaire residents (those with net worths of $100 million or more) at 756, having enjoyed what researchers at Henley & Partners described as an “exceptional” millionaire growth of 98% over the past decade.
(Getty Images)
(Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“The Bay Area continues to dominate the global high-tech sector,” Andrew Amolis, head of research at New World Wealth, tells Realtor.com. “It is particularly dominant in software development, microchips, social media, online streaming, internet hosting, and AI.”
Amolis explains that New York, as the home of IBM, and Seattle, dominated by Amazon and Microsoft, had competed with Silicon Valley for a while, “but have now fallen away slightly.”
Besides the obvious business advantages, the Bay Area may appeal to the ultrawealthy set looking for more access to nature, space, and milder weather than they can find in New York.
While it may be no match for the Bay Area when it comes to the billionaire segment, the Big Apple continued leading the world in the number of resident millionaires and centibillionaires, at 384,500 and 818, respectively, according to the report.
Jones notes that there is also a significant difference in the kind of wealth found in the two locales.
“The Bay Area’s ‘new money’ comes almost entirely from tech, while New York’s ‘old money’ comes from more varied sources such as media, real estate, finance, etc.,” says Jones. “The Bay also boasts access to bright college grads from Stanford and Berkeley, which only bolsters the area as a hub for talent, innovation, and access to capital.”
The latest available data from the Realtor.com March 2025 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report shows that last month, the median home list price in San Francisco was $950,000, which was nearly 125% higher than the national median of $424,000.
The median list price in New York City during the same period was $780,000.
Two other major U.S. metros—Los Angeles and Chicago—have made it onto the top 10 cities for millionaires list.
L.A. ranked fifth on the list, boasting 220,600 millionaires, 516 centimillionaires, and 45 billionaires, while the Windy City took the 10th spot with its 127,100 millionaires, 295 centimillionaires, and 25 billionaires.
Six other U.S. cities showed up in the top 50 rankings, including Houston (No. 17), Dallas (No. 21), Seattle (No. 25), Boston (No. 31), Miami (No. 32), Austin (No. 36), and Washington, DC (No. 41).
The 10 wealthiest billionaires living in the San Francisco Bay Area
1. Mark Zuckerberg
Net worth: $184 billion
Age: 40
Residence: Palo Alto, CA
Source of wealth: Facebook
2. Larry Page
Net worth: $126 billion
Age: 52
Residence: Palo Alto, CA
Source of wealth: Google
3. Sergey Brin
Net worth: $122 billion
Age: 51
Residence: Los Altos Hills, CA
Source of wealth: Google
4. Jensen Huang
Net worth: $92 billion
Age: 62
Residence: Los Altos Hills, CA
Source of wealth: Nvidia
5. Eric Schmidt
Net worth: $22 billion
Age: 69
Residence: Atherton, CA
Source of wealth: Google
6. Dustin Moskovitz
Net worth: $15 billion
Age: 40
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Source of wealth: Facebook
7. George Roberts
Net worth: $13.5 billion
Age: 81
Residence: Atherton, CA
Source of wealth: Private equity
8. Laurene Powell Jobs
Net worth: $13.3 billion
Age: 61
Residence: Palo Alto, CA
Source of wealth: Apple
9. John Doerr
Net worth: $12.3 billion
Age: 73
Residence: Woodside, CA
Source of wealth: Venture capital
10. Charles Schwab
Net worth: $10.6 billion
Age: 87
Residence: Woodside, CA
Source of wealth: Charles Schwab brokerage
