In a remarkable financial surge, America's wealthiest technology billionaires have increased their combined net worth by over $550 billion this year, capitalizing on an intense investor frenzy surrounding leading artificial intelligence enterprises.

According to Bloomberg data, the ten richest US tech founders and chief executives held assets exceeding $2.5 trillion in cash, equity, and other investments by the close of trading on Christmas Eve in New York.

This represents a significant jump from $1.9 trillion at the start of the year, a period that also witnessed the S&P 500 index climbing more than 18 percent.

Silicon Valley's elite have reaped immense benefits from the global expenditure of hundreds of billions on AI chips, data centers, and related products, even as some of their gains were pared back in recent months amid growing concerns about a potential AI-driven investment bubble.

"This is all speculative and correlated to the success of AI," commented Jason Furman, a Harvard University economics professor who also consults for OpenAI. "There's a huge question mark over whether this is all going to pay off, but investors are betting that it will."

Elon Musk continues to lead the list, with his net worth soaring nearly 50 percent to $645 billion, having only briefly relinquished the top spot in September to Oracle founder Larry Ellison.

Musk's wealth experienced a dramatic ascent during a year in which he secured a monumental $1 trillion pay package from Tesla shareholders and saw the valuation of his aerospace company, SpaceX, surge to $800 billion.

Another major beneficiary of the AI boom is Jensen Huang, founder of the AI chipmaker Nvidia, which has rapidly ascended to become the world's largest listed company with a market capitalization exceeding $4 trillion. Huang now ranks as the eighth wealthiest US tech executive, with a net worth of $156 billion.

Securities filings reveal that Huang disposed of over $1 billion worth of his company's shares this year, capitalizing on Nvidia's dominant position as the world's premier manufacturer of advanced AI chips.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos also sold $5.6 billion in shares this year, while Michael Dell divested more than $2 billion worth of stock in his eponymous technology company.

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg slipped down the rankings following a recent downturn in the social media giant's share price, as investor apprehension grew over its massive spending on AI infrastructure and compensation packages for top AI researchers.

Larry Ellison witnessed a substantial increase in his net worth after Oracle announced a $300 billion data center deal with OpenAI three months ago. However, subsequent concerns about the financing of this expansive data center build-out have caused Oracle's share price to retreat 40 percent from its September peak.

Zuckerberg and Ellison were surpassed by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, whose net worth grew by $270 billion and $255 billion, respectively, as the search giant makes significant advancements with its proprietary AI models and chips.

Microsoft's Bill Gates was the sole individual among this elite group to finish the year with a lower net worth than he started with, as he continued to sell his stock in the software behemoth to fund his extensive philanthropic initiatives.