More Than 500,000 Americans Recently Became Millionaires. Here's How They Did It

Stock market gains fueled by big bets on tech and the future of AI have turned more retirement savers into millionaires, and rich American investors are raking it in faster than their counterparts around the globe, according to two new studies.

A new retirement report from Fidelity Investments finds that in the first three months of 2025, there were 512,000 401(k) millionaires, with an average account balance of $1.6 million. While the number of 401(k) millionaires also dropped by nearly 5% in the first three months of 2025 due to market volatility, it's a big jump compared to five years ago.

Stock gains have added to the wealth of the ultra-rich in addition to the merely well-off. According to an annual global wealth management report released Wednesday by consulting firm Capgemini, high-net-worth individuals — defined as people with $1 million or more to invest — had a banner year in 2024.

Wealthy investors in the U.S. did especially well. This population grew in number by nearly 8%, while their wealth grew by roughly 9% compared to a year earlier. Overall, Capgemini estimates there are now 7.9 million of these millionaires in the U.S.

Although high-net-worth investors in some other parts of the world also grew wealthier in 2024, rich Americans, by and large, did better than their overseas counterparts.

Worldwide, the population of high-net-worth people grew by 2.6% in 2024 from a year earlier; the amount of wealth held increased by 4.2%.

Enthusiasm for technology and AI investments drove big stock gains in 2024 — including a roughly 23% rise in the S&P 500 and a 29% jump in the technology-heavy Nasdaq, the report noted. It also highlighted the especially outsized role tech stocks played in driving these returns, especially the "Magnificent Seven" (that's Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla, for those not hip to investing lingo).

What's more, the greatest gains were concentrated among the world's richest people.

The folks Capgemini dubs "millionaires next door," or those with investable assets of $1 million to $5 million, saw a 2.4% growth in population and a 2.6% growth in wealth. In comparison, those with more than $30 million grew in number by 6.2% and expanded their wealth by 6.3%.

Capgemini also found interest rate cuts combined more aggressive investing practices helped the rich get richer, a trend that seems to be continuing, according to the report. Affluent investors increased their exposure to equities and reduced their holdings of "safer" investments like bonds in the first three months of 2025. They also had 15% of their wealth locked up in digital assets like cryptocurrencies: a bet that the Trump administration will foster a favorable environment for bitcoin and crypto-based funds.

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