Billionaire Watch: Lütke’s fortune up $5B since July

Shopify chief executive Tobi Lütke is worth about $15 billion, up roughly $5 billion since July, making him Canada’s third-richest resident, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Bloomberg reported on Oct. 15 that only grocery heir Galen Weston and Sherry Brydson, a member of the Thomson family, rank ahead of Lütke among Canadian residents. Bloomberg Billionaires Index figures are in U.S. dollars. Lütke did not respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment, according to coverage of the report.

His wealth comes mainly from a stake of about six per cent in Shopify, held largely through class B shares that carry extra votes, according to Bloomberg. The company’s market value is close to $222 billion. Shopify shares rose 7.5 per cent on Sept. 22, the day it announced a partnership with Meta to bring its AI agent to the platform, as we reported at the time.

The gain has come with public criticism. In late July, Lütke replied “Good system” to a post by former TD Bank executive Eric Thor that proposed weighting votes by income tax paid, with the highest earners getting up to five votes and non-taxpayers none, according to Daily Hive. The posts were later deleted, Bloomberg reported. Our earlier report covered the original exchange.

York University political scientist Dennis Pilon told CTV News the idea amounted to a return to 19th-century plutocracy. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said such a system would violate Section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to vote.

Critics have also noted that Shopify’s dual-class structure gives Lütke about 40 per cent of the voting power with roughly six per cent of the economic interest, according to the reporting. Bloomberg also said he has criticized Canada’s counter-tariffs on U.S. goods.

The standings sit alongside our list of the top 10 Canadian billionaires on Forbes’ 2026 ranking, which uses a different methodology, so rankings and figures between the two trackers will not match exactly. The story is developing.

Via Bloomberg, with details from Shopifreaks and Billionaires Africa.

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