Inside Forbes’ ranking of the richest billionaires in the United States.
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Forbes Daily Briefing
The 2024 Forbes 400 List Of Wealthiest Americans: Facts And Figures
Here's your Forbes daily briefing for Wednesday, October 2nd. Today on Forbes, the 2024 Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, Facts and Figures. It's a record-smashing year for America's 400 richest people. After adding nearly $1 trillion to their fortunes over the past 12 months, the Forbes 400 are worth a collective $5.4 trillion, by far the most ever. It now takes a record $3.3 billion to even make the annual list, which we released Tuesday, up from $2.9 billion in 2023. In general, the richer you were, the richer you got. Just 25 people, a dozen of them worth $100 billion or more, are responsible for $500 billion of the gains. These top 25 now hold more than $2.5 trillion in wealth, nearly half the list's total net worth. Forbes calculated fortunes using stock prices from September 1st, 2024. The richest person in America, for the third straight year, is Elon Musk, who is worth an estimated $244 billion. Despite dropping $7 billion in wealth over the past year, amidst sputtering Tesla stock and an ongoing battle over his $56 billion stock options package, Musk remains some $47 billion ahead of #2 Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, who is worth an estimated $197 billion. Mark Zuckerberg, whose estimated net worth is $181 billion, climbed from #8 last year to #3 in 2024, thanks to the huge rebound and shares of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Alice Walton continues her reign as the richest woman in the US, her ninth time in a decade. With shares of Walmart, which her father Sam Walton co-founded in 1962, up by 41% in the past year, she's worth an estimated $89.2 billion, good for #15 overall. Walton is one of just 67 women on the Forbes 400, up from 60 last year. As a group, the list's women are worth a combined $839 billion, compared to $621 billion in 2023. Diane Hendricks, who's worth $21.9 billion, remains the wealthiest self-made woman in America, one of a record 13 women on the list who built, rather than inherited, their fortune. Overall, 67% of the Forbes 400 is self-made, meaning they founded their own company or helped build one. Though some traveled much longer and tougher paths to great wealth than others. Forbes once again assigned everyone on the list a self-made score, from 1 to 10, with 10 being the true rags-to-riches stories. Those remain rare, just 25 out of the 400. Despite it requiring more money than ever to make the list, 23 billionaires were able to elbow their way into the ranks this year. Some of these newcomers include Todd Graves, who created the Raising Canes fast food chain, which is worth $9.5 billion. Leonid Radvinsky, the owner of OnlyFans, who's worth $3.8 billion, and Alex Carp, the co-founder and CEO of Data Mining Company Palantir, who's worth $3.6 billion. Another 11 people who fell off a previous Forbes 400 list returned to the ranks this year. The most notable? Donald Trump, now worth $4.3 billion. Trump has written the volatile stock price of truth-social parent company, Trump Media and Technology Group, back onto the list, part of a broader ploy to ring billions in wealth out of his political career. These newcomers and returnees displaced several less fortunate billionaires who lost their spot among the nation's richest people. There were 30 drop-offs this year. They joined a growing list of American billionaires who were simply too poor to make the cut. For the first time ever, there are more American billionaires not on the Forbes 400 than there are on it, 415 and counting. That includes famous names like Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Seinfeld, and Taylor Swift. The youngest member of the ranks is Walmart heir Lucas Walton, who is 38 years old and worth an estimated $33.9 billion. Venture capitalist and real estate mogul Josh Kushner, who is worth $3.8 billion and is 39 years old, is the only other listy under the age of 40. On average, the members of the 2024 Forbes 400 are 70 years old. The eldest is Dole Food Company's David Murdock, who is worth $3.7 billion and is 101 years old. For full coverage and to see the whole list, as well as see our more in-depth Forbes 400 videos on the top five, the billionaires not rich enough to make it, and the newcomers. Check out Chase Peterson Whithorn's piece on Forbes.com. This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in. [BLANK_AUDIO]