I was looking at a ranking of the wealthiest people in early 2025, and I was struck by how religion is spread almost everywhere among billionaires. There’s no real pattern.

For example, Elon Musk and Larry Page are atheists and have made enormous fortunes. Jeff Bezos, on the other hand, grew up Catholic and built Amazon. But people like Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg are Jewish, as is Sergey Brin. Bernard Arnault is Roman Catholic with the money from LVMH. Warren Buffett and Steve Ballmer are Protestants.

What surprises me is that you don’t see a clear correlation between religion and economic success. Other factors seem more important, like timing, innovation, the right industry. Jeff Bezos’s religion or anyone else’s doesn’t really seem to determine whether you become a billionaire or not.

The only one we know nothing about is Jensen Huang of Nvidia, who keeps that private. But at that point, it’s just a detail. The point is that extreme wealth comes from all possible religious beliefs, or none at all. Interesting, isn’t it?