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Humanoid robots draw millions from Bezos, OpenAI and more

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Figure 01, the first-generation humanoid robot from Sunnyvale, Calif. startup Figure. Photo courtesy of Figure

Humanoid robot startup Figure has drawn a $675 million investment from Jeff Bezos, AI chipmaker Nvidia, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and others.

Why it matters: Bipedal robots with dexterous hands are joining the labor force this year, a trend that's expected to gain steam.

Driving the news: The infusion of capital for Figure, a Silicon Valley startup founded by "flying taxi" pioneer Brett Adcock, gives it a valuation of $2.6 billion.

  • Investors include Microsoft, the OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia, the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund and Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions).
  • Others include Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures and ARK Invest.
  • The $675 million Series B funding round "will accelerate Figure's timeline for humanoid commercial deployment," the company said in a release.

The intrigue: Figure and OpenAI will also collaborate to develop next-generation AI models for humanoid robots.

  • This will combine "OpenAI's research with Figure's deep understanding of robotics hardware and software," the companies said.
  • The partnership "aims to help accelerate Figure's commercial timeline by enhancing the capabilities of humanoid robots to process and reason from language."
Figure robots are manufactured in a 30,000-square-foot facility in Sunnyvale, Calif. Photo courtesy of Figure

The big picture: There's an arms race among humanoid robot makers — which include Tesla and Boston Dynamics — to bring anthropomorphic machines into the workplace.

  • Figure's robots are joining BMW's production line.
  • Amazon is testing Digit, from Agility Robotics, for warehouse work.
  • NASA has a partnership with Apptronik to develop its humanoid robot (aptly named Apollo) for space exploration.
  • Sanctuary AI's robot Phoenix was named a TIME 2023 Best Invention after it "picked, packed, tagged, labeled, and folded clothes at a clothing store in Langley, Canada."
  • Other players readying humanoid robots for the workplace include 1X, which makes an android named EVE, and Hanson Robotics, whose well-mannered feminine robot is called Sophia.

Watch: See videos of Figure's robot moving a crate to a conveyor belt and making coffee, Tesla's Optimus taking a stroll and Sanctuary's Phoenix taking your blood pressure.

What they're saying: The big investment in Figure is "part of a scramble to find new applications for artificial intelligence," per Bloomberg, which broke the funding news.

  • "Robots have emerged as a critical new frontier for the AI industry, letting it apply cutting-edge technology to real-world tasks," Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and Gillian Tan wrote.

Between the lines: Humanoid robots' growing muscle raises new fears about taking away jobs from humans, though robotics companies assure us that they're meant for work that's too dangerous or repetitive for people.

  • A watchword in this corner of the robotics industry is "upskilling" — the idea that people who are replaced by robots will be trained for better and more fulfilling roles in the same field.

What's next: Humanoid robots are edging gingerly into actual workplaces, with companies kicking the tires before letting them loose beside flesh-and-blood workers.

  • "I think the next 24 months you'll start seeing humanoid robots in the real world," Adcock tells Axios.
https://www.axios.com/2024/02/29/ai-robot-figure-nvidia-openai-jeff-bezos
https://www.tesla.com/AI
Tesla has long-term contracts in place for lithium supply. In September 2020, Tesla signed a sales agreement with Piedmont Lithium to buy high-purity lithium ore for up to ten years,[278] specifically to supply "spodumene concentrate from Piedmont's North Carolina mineral deposit".[279] In 2022, Tesla contracted for 110,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate over four years from the Core Lithium's lithium mine in the Northern Territory of Australia.[280]

Figure AI, a startup working to build humanoid robots that can perform dangerous and undesirable jobs, just got a big vote of confidence from some of the largest names in artificial intelligence.

The company said Thursday that it raised $675 million at a $2.6 billion valuation from investors including Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and Microsoft.

Founded in 2022, Figure AI has developed a general-purpose robot, called Figure 01, that looks and moves like a human. The company sees its robots being put to use in manufacturing, shipping and logistics, warehousing, and retail, “where labor shortages are the most severe,” though its machines aren’t intended for military or defense applications.

Earlier this week, the company released a video showing Figure 01 in action. The robot, attached to a tether, walks on two legs, and uses its five-fingered hands to pick up a plastic crate, then walks several more steps before placing the box on a conveyor belt.

Figure’s ultimate aim is for Figure 01 to be able to perform “everyday tasks autonomously.” The company says getting there will require it to develop more robust AI systems.

Meanwhile, Figure is part of a crowded field of companies vying to make humanoid robots a reality. Amazon-backed Agility Robotics plans to open a factory that can produce up to 10,000 of its bipedal Digit robots per year. Tesla is also trying to build a humanoid robot, called Optimus, while robotics company Boston Dynamics has developed several models. Norwegian humanoid robot startup 1X Technologies recently raised $100 million with backing from OpenAI.

The market is nascent. Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect the humanoid robot market to reach $38 billion by 2035, and project that more than 250,000 units could be shipped in 2030.

“Right now we’re at an early curve where there’s loads of interest in humanoids, and I think that will continue for a while,” said Tom Andersson, co-founder and principal analyst of STIQ Ltd., which publishes research on robotics and retail technologies. Andersson said there will need to be “several step changes” before it can be rolled out broadly.

As part of the deal announced Thursday, Figure said it’s partnering with ChatGPT maker OpenAI to “develop next generation AI models for humanoid robots.” It will also use Microsoft’s Azure cloud services for AI infrastructure, training and storage, Figure said.

Humanoid robots require expensive components such as actuators, motors and sensors to function. Goldman researchers say those costs are expected to come down in the coming years, noting they’ve already dropped to between $30,000 and $150,000 per unit, from a range of $50,000 to $250,000 per unit last year.

Intel’s venture fund was also part of the Figure investment round along with Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest, Align Ventures and existing investor Parkway Venture Capital.

The 10 Richest People in the World

By
DAN MOSKOWITZ
Full Bio
Dan Moskowitz is a freelance financial writer who has 4+ years of experience creating content for the online reading market.
Learn about our editorial policies
Updated March 01, 2024
Reviewed by MARGARET JAMES
Fact checked by KIRSTEN ROHRS SCHMITT
Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Alain Jocard / AFP / Getty Images

Billionaires play an outsized role in shaping the global economy, politics, and philanthropy. Forbes puts the number of billionaires in the world at 2,640 in 2023. The wealthiest among them is Elon Musk; CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and owner of X (formerly Twitter).12

The individuals on this list belong to an even more exclusive club and wield still more power. Many are founders of technology giants, with much of their wealth still invested in the companies they started.

These billionaires can, however, still borrow against that wealth to avoid selling stock, deferring (or eliminating for heirs) taxes on unrealized capital gains in the process. Multi-billionaires can also take advantage of a panoply of tax deductions to offset reported income, leaving some on this list paying no income tax in recent years.34

With so much of their wealth in publicly traded stocks, the net worth of the richest fluctuates along with the market valuations of the companies they own. Below are the 10 wealthiest people on the planet, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. All figures are current as of March 1, 2024.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Elon Musk; CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and owner of X, is the richest person and the richest man in the world with a net worth of $215 billion.
  • After Musk is Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
  • Other billionaires with some of the largest net worths include LVMH's Arnault, Microsoft's Bill Gates, and Oracle's Larry Ellison.
  • Eight of the top 10 billionaires made their fortunes in technology, with Arnault and Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett being the exceptions.

1. Elon Musk

  • Age: 52
  • Residence: United States
  • Co-founder and CEO: Tesla
  • Net Worth: $215 billion
  • Tesla Ownership Stake: 13% ($83 billion)
  • X Ownership Stake: 79% ($8.37 billion)
  • Other Assets: Space Exploration Technologies ($71.2 billion private asset), The Boring Company ($3.33 billion private asset), Neuralink ($2.07 billion private asset)5
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Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. He was born in South Africa and attended a university in Canada before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned bachelor's degrees in physics and economics. Two days after enrolling in a graduate physics program at Stanford University, Musk deferred attendance to launch Zip2, one of the earliest online navigation services. He reinvested a portion of the proceeds from this startup to create X.com, the online payment system that was sold to eBay (EBAY) and ultimately became PayPal Holdings (PYPL).6

In 2004, Musk became a major funder of Tesla Motors (now Tesla), which led to his current position as CEO of the electric vehicle company. In addition to its line of electric automobiles, Tesla produces energy storage devices, automobile accessories, and, through its acquisition of SolarCity in 2016, solar power systems. Musk is also CEO and chief engineer of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), a developer of space launch rockets.67

Saul Martinez / Getty Images

In Dec. 2020, Tesla joined the S&P 500, becoming the largest company added, and in Jan. 2021, Musk became the richest person in the world—a title that has fluctuated alongside the value of Tesla.85In April 2022, Musk began a campaign to take X private, which culminated in a $44 billion buyout. Musk planned to fund the deal with $21 billion of his own capital. In the run-up to the buyout announcement, Musk sold 9.6 million shares of Tesla, valued at roughly $8.5 billion.910

In July 2022, Musk decided to back out of the buyout. The company filed a lawsuit against Musk to force the buyout to go through. Musk countersued the company but then reversed course and declared he was willing to buy it after all. The deal officially closed in Oct. 2022, giving him a 79% stake in the company.1112

2. Jeff Bezos

  • Age: 60
  • Residence: United States
  • Founder and Executive Chair: Amazon (AMZN)
  • Net Worth: $199 billion
  • Amazon Ownership Stake: 10% ($166 billion)
  • Other Assets: Blue Origin ($15 billion private asset), The Washington Post ($250 million private asset), Koru ($500 million private asset), and $17.8 billion in cash13

In 1994, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com in a garage in Seattle, shortly after he resigned from the hedge fund giant D.E. Shaw. He had originally pitched the idea of an online bookstore to his former boss David E. Shaw, who wasn’t interested.1415

Though Amazon originally started out selling books, it has since morphed into a one-stop shop for everything under the sun and is expected to overtake Walmart as the world’s largest retailer by 2024. Amazon's pattern of constant diversification is evident in some of its unexpected expansions, which include acquiring Whole Foods in 2017 and entering the pharmacy business the same year.1617Bezos owned as much as 16% of Amazon in 2019 before transferring 4% to his former wife, MacKenzie Scott, as part of their divorce proceedings. In 2020, Amazon’s share price jumped 76% on the heightened demand for online shopping amid the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 5, 2021, Bezos stepped down as CEO of the e-commerce giant, becoming its executive chair.181319

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Bezos originally took Amazon public in 1997 and went on to become the first man since Bill Gates in 1999 to achieve a net worth of more than $100 billion. Bezos’ other projects include aerospace company Blue Origin, The Washington Post (which he purchased in 2013), and the 10,000-year clock—also known as the Long Now.202122

On July 20, 2021, Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and Dutch student Oliver Daemen completed Blue Origin's first successful crewed flight, reaching an altitude of more than 66 miles before landing safely. Bezos' wealth peaked at $213 billion in the same month.1323In 2023, he paid $500 million for the superyacht, Koru.13

3. Bernard Arnault

  • Age: 74
  • Residence: France
  • CEO and Chair: LVMH (LVMUY)
  • Net Worth: $198 billion
  • Christian Dior Ownership Stake: 97.5% ($152 billion total)
  • Other Assets: Moelis & Company equity ($30.9 billion public asset) and $15.2 billion in cash24

French national Bernard Arnault is the chair and CEO of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company. LVMH brands include Louis Vuitton, Hennessey, Marc Jacobs, and Sephora.25

Most of Arnault's wealth comes from his massive stake in Christian Dior SE, the holding company that controls 41.4% of LVMH. His shares in Christian Dior SE, plus an additional 6.2% in LVMH, are held through his family-owned holding company, Groupe Familial Arnault.24

Christophe Morin / Getty Images

An engineer by training, Arnault first showed his business acumen while working for his father’s construction firm, Ferret-Savinel, taking charge of the company in 1971. He converted Ferret-Savinel to a real estate company named Férinel Inc. in 1979.26Arnault remained Férinel's chair for another six years, until he acquired and reorganized luxury goods maker Financière Agache in 1984, eventually selling all its holdings other than Christian Dior and Le Bon Marché. He was invited to invest in LVMH in 1987 and became the majority shareholder, chair of the board, and CEO of the company two years later.27

4. Mark Zuckerberg

  • Age: 39
  • Residence: United States
  • CEO and Chair: Meta Platforms (META)
  • Net Worth: $171 billion
  • Meta Platforms Ownership Stake: 13% ($136 billion total)
  • Other Assets: $4.45 billion in cash28

Mark Zuckerberg first developed Facebook (now Meta) alongside fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes while attending Harvard University in 2004. As Facebook began to be used at other universities, Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to focus entirely on his growing business. Today, Zuckerberg is the CEO and chair of Meta, which had 3 billion monthly active users as of Q2 2023.282930

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Chesnot / Getty Images

Facebook is the world's largest social networking service. As the website is free to use, most of the company's revenue is generated through advertising.Meta is also host to several other brands, including photo-sharing app Instagram, which it acquired in 2012; cross-platform mobile messaging service WhatsApp and virtual-reality–headset producer Oculus, both acquired in 2014; Workplace, its enterprise-connectivity platform; and Portal, its line of video-calling devices.313233Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in 2015, with each of them serving as co-CEOs. Their charity seeks to leverage technology to fix societal ills, such as improving the access and quality of education, reforming both the criminal justice system and the U.S. immigration system, improving housing affordability, and eventually eradicating all diseases.3435

5. Bill Gates

  • Age: 68
  • Residence: United States
  • Co-founder: Microsoft (MSFT)
  • Net Worth: $149 billion
  • Microsoft Ownership Stake: 1.4% ($26.8 billion)
  • Other Assets: $70.9 billion in cash and billions over multiple other companies36

While attending Harvard University in 1975, Bill Gates went to work alongside his childhood friend Paul Allen to develop new software for the original microcomputers. Following this project’s success, Gates dropped out of Harvard during his junior year and founded Microsoft with Allen.3738

The largest software company in the world, Microsoft, also produces a line of personal computers, provides email services through its exchange server, and sells video game systems and associated game devices. It has recently invested heavily in cloud services.394041

Jack Taylor / Getty Images

Gates shifted from the company's CEO to the role of board chair in 2008. He joined Berkshire Hathaway’s board in 2004. He stepped down from both boards on March 13, 2020.424344

Bill Gates has much of his net worth in Cascade Investment LLC. Cascade is a privately-held investment vehicle that owns a variety of stocks including Canadian National Railway (CNR), Deere (DE), and Republic Services (RSG), as well as private investments in real estate and energy.45

6. Steve Ballmer

  • Age: 67
  • Residence: United States
  • Owner: Los Angeles Clippers
  • Net Worth: $143 billion
  • Microsoft Ownership Stake: 4% ($132 billion total)
  • Other Assets: Los Angeles Clippers ($4.56 billion private asset), The Forum ($400 million private asset), Intuit Dome ($2 billion private asset), $3.90 billion in cash46
Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 after Bill Gates convinced him to drop out of Stanford University's MBA program. He was Microsoft's 30th employee. Ballmer went on to succeed Gates as Microsoft CEO in 2000. He held the position until stepping down in 2014. Ballmer oversaw Microsoft's 2011 purchase of Skype for $8.5 billion.47
Steven Ferdman / Getty Images.Ballmer owns an estimated 4% of Microsoft, making him the software giant's largest individual shareholder. In 2014, shortly after stepping down as Microsoft CEO, Ballmer purchased the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team for $2 billion.Ballmer lived in the same dorm and on the same floor as Bill Gates while the two attended Harvard University. The brotherly relationship between the two became strained when Ballmer started pushing the tech company into hardware, such as the Surface tablet and the Windows mobile phone, during his tenure as CEO.46

7. Warren Buffett

  • Age: 93
  • Residence: United States
  • CEO: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)
  • Net Worth: $135 billion
  • Berkshire Hathaway Ownership Stake: 15% ($134 billion)48
  • Other Assets: $1.40 billion in cash49

The most famous living value investor, Warren Buffett filed his first tax return in 1944 at age 14, declaring earnings from his boyhood paper route. He first bought shares in a textile company called Berkshire Hathaway in 1962, becoming the majority shareholder by 1965. Buffett expanded the company's holdings to insurance and other investments in 1967.5051

Widely known as the Oracle of Omaha, Buffett is a buy-and-hold investor who built his fortune by acquiring undervalued companies. More recently, Berkshire Hathaway has invested in large, well-known companies. Its portfolio of wholly owned subsidiaries includes interests in insurance, energy distribution, and railroads as well as consumer products.515253

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Buffett is a notable Bitcoin skeptic.54Buffett has dedicated much of his wealth to philanthropy. Between 2006 and 2020, he gave away $41 billion—mostly to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and his children’s charities. Buffett launched the Giving Pledge alongside Bill Gates in 2010.5556Now 93 years old, Buffett still serves as CEO, but in 2021 he stated that his likely successor would be Gregory Abel, head of Berkshire’s non-insurance operations.57

8. Larry Ellison

  • Age: 79
  • Residence: United States
  • Co-founder, Chair, and CTO: Oracle (ORCL)
  • Net Worth: $127 billion
  • Oracle Ownership Stake: 42%+ ($93.7 billion)
  • Other Assets: Tesla equity ($9.09 billion public asset), $24.2 billion in cash58

Larry Ellison was born in New York City to a 19-year-old single mother. After dropping out of the University of Chicago in 1966, Ellison moved to California and worked as a computer programmer. In 1973, he joined the electronics company Ampex, where he met future partners Ed Oates and Bob Miner. Three years later, Ellison moved to Precision Instruments, serving as the company’s vice president of research and development.59

In 1977, Ellison founded Software Development Laboratories alongside Oates and Miner. Two years later, the company released Oracle, the first commercial relational database program to use Structured Query Language. The database program proved so popular that SDL changed its name to Oracle Systems Corporation in 1982. Ellison gave up the CEO role at Oracle in 2014 after 37 years. He joined Tesla's board in Dec. 2018 and stepped down in June 2022.59606162

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Oracle is the world's second-largest software company, providing a wide variety of cloud computing programs as well as Java and Linux code and the Oracle Exadata computing platform. Oracle has acquired numerous large companies over its history, such as Sun Microsystems and Cerner.6364Ellison has focused his philanthropy on medical research. In 2016, he gave $200 million to the University of Southern California for a new cancer research center. Ellison backed the Oracle Team USA sailing team, which won the America's Cup racing series in 2010 and 2013.65

9. Larry Page

  • Age: 50
  • Residence: United States
  • Co-founder and Board Member: Alphabet (GOOG)
  • Net Worth: $126 billion
  • Alphabet Ownership Stake: 6% ($108.5 billion total)
  • Other Assets: $17.9 billion in cash66

Like several of the tech billionaires on this list, Larry Page embarked on his path to fame and fortune in a college dorm room. While attending Stanford University in 1995, Page and his friend Sergey Brin came up with the idea of improving Internet data extraction. The duo devised a new search engine technology they dubbed Backrub after its ability to assess links to a page.

From there, Page and Brin went on to found Google in 1998, with Page serving as CEO of the company until 2001, and again between 2011 and 2019.6768

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Google is the world's dominant Internet search engine, accounting for more than 92% of global search requests. In 2006, the company purchased YouTube, the top platform for user-submitted videos.6970

After acquiring Android in 2005, Google released the Android mobile phone operating system in 2008. Google reorganized in 2015, becoming a subsidiary of Alphabet, a holding company.717273

Page was among early investors in Planetary Resources, a space exploration and asteroid-mining company. Established in 2009, the company was acquired by blockchain firm ConsenSys in 2018 amid funding problems. He has also shown an interest in flying car companies, investing in both Kitty Hawk and Opener, although Kitty Hawk ceased operations in 2022.747576

10. Sergey Brin

  • Age: 50
  • Residence: United States
  • Co-founder and Board Member: Alphabet (GOOG)
  • Net Worth: $120 billion
  • Alphabet Ownership Stake: 6% ($101.9 billion total)
  • Other Assets: $18 billion in cash77

Sergey Brin was born in Moscow, Russia, moving to the U.S. with his family when he was six in 1979. After co-founding Google with Larry Page in 1998, Brin became Google's president of technology when Eric Schmidt took over as CEO in 2001. He held the same post at the Alphabet holding company after it was established in 2015, stepping down in 2019 when Sundar Pichai took over as CEO.7879

Getty Images, Kelly Sullivan / Stringer.

In addition to its dominant internet search engine, Google offers a suite of online tools and services known as Google Workspace, which includes Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Meet, Google Chat, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and more. Google also offers a variety of electronic devices, including Pixel smartphones, computers, and tablets, Nest smart home devices, and the Stadia gaming platform.

Brin has donated millions of dollars to Parkinson’s disease research, partnering with The Michael J. Fox Foundation.80

Who Are the Top 10 Richest People in the World?

The top 10 richest people in the world as of March 1, 2024, are:

  1. Elon Musk
  2. Jeff Bezos
  3. Bernard Arnault
  4. Mark Zuckerberg
  5. Bill Gates
  6. Steve Ballmer
  7. Warren Buffett
  8. Larry Ellison
  9. Larry Page
  10. Sergey Brin2

Who Is the World's Richest Man in 2024?

As of March 1, 2024, the world's richest man is Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.2

Who Is the Richest Woman in the World?

The richest woman in the world is Francoise Bettencourt Meyers. As of March 1, 2024, her net worth is $96.1 billion. Her net worth is derived from her holdings in L'Oréal, the world's largest cosmetics company.281

The Bottom Line

If you want to get a little closer to making the richest billionaires rankings, you might need to become a technological innovator or luxury retail mastermind. Or you could keep it simple and focus on value investing.

It also wouldn’t hurt to have been born into wealth; however, the greatest fortunes on this list started as good ideas that people with creativity, drive, and connections used to build some of the world's largest companies.