The landscape of global wealth has shifted this fall as a new leader emerges among the world’s youngest elite. Edwin Chen, the 38-year-old founder of Surge AI, has officially become the richest self-made billionaire under the age of 40, boasting an estimated net worth of $18 billion.
Chen’s ascent marks the end of an era previously dominated by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and briefly held by the Collison brothers of Stripe. His rise is part of a massive wave of wealth creation driven by the artificial intelligence boom. Since March 2025, 27 new self-made billionaires under 40 have emerged to have minted three-comma fortunes with nearly half of these newcomers tracing their fortunes back to AI ventures.
The Rise of Surge AI
Unlike many of his peers in Silicon Valley, Chen’s path to the top was remarkably independent. A graduate of MIT with a background in math, computer science, and linguistics, he founded Surge AI in 2020. The company provides critical data labeling services used to train the world’s most advanced AI models for clients such as Google and Anthropic.
The financial performance of the startup has been staggering, generating $1.2 billion in revenue during 2024 alone. Most notably, Chen claims to have scaled the business to its current height without taking any outside venture capital.
A High Bar for the World’s Youngest Elites
The current rankings highlight how difficult it has become to break into the top tier of young wealth. The minimum threshold to enter the top 40 is now set at $1.8 billion, a spot currently shared by DoorDash’s Andy Fang and Bullish’s Brendan Blumer. This high barrier has kept several cultural icons and rising tech stars off the list.
“That’s a high enough bar to keep out a bunch of big names like 36-year-old Taylor Swift (estimated fortune: $1.6 billion) and 37-year-old Rihanna ($1 billion), who both missed the cut. Also falling outside the top 40 are some of the youngest billionaires: prediction markets startup Kalshi’s 29-year-old cofounder Luana Lopes Lara ($1.3 billion)… and AI recruiting startup Mercor’s three 22-year-old cofounders, who became the youngest self-made billionaires ever in October,” according to Forbes.
While Chen leads the pack today, his $18 billion fortune is still only a fraction of what Zuckerberg held at his peak in 2021. However, with the AI sector continuing to expand rapidly, Chen’s position at the helm of Surge AI suggests that the “three-comma” club of the under-40 generation is becoming more tech-centric and competitive than ever before.