Forbes has released their annual ranking of the richest billionaires in the United States, with a record-breaking total net worth of $5.4 trillion for the top 400 individuals. The cutoff to make the list has also increased to $3.3 billion, up from $2.9 billion the year before. This increase in wealth was largely driven by the top 25 individuals, who now hold more than half of the list’s total net worth.
Leading the pack for the third consecutive year is Elon Musk, with an estimated net worth of $244 billion. Despite a $7 billion drop in wealth over the past year, Musk remains ahead of Jeff Bezos, who is worth $197 billion, and Mark Zuckerberg, who climbed to the third spot with an estimated $181 billion. The richest woman on the list is Alice Walton, with a net worth of $89.2 billion, thanks to a 41% increase in Walmart shares.
The Forbes 400 includes a record number of women this year, with 67 individuals making the list, up from 60 the year before. Diane Hendricks remains the wealthiest self-made woman in America, among a total of 13 women who built their fortunes from scratch. Overall, 67% of the list is self-made, with Forbes assigning each individual a self-made score to reflect their journey to wealth.
Despite the increasing wealth required to make the list, 23 newcomers were able to join this year, including Todd Graves, Peter Cancro, Jayshree Ullal, Leonid Radvinsky, and Alex Karp. Additionally, 11 individuals who had previously fallen off the list made a return, including Donald Trump, who rode the stock price of his company back onto the list. Several billionaires who did not make the cut this year had previously been displaced by better-performing individuals.
There are now more American billionaires who are not on The Forbes 400 list than there are on it, with 415 billionaires not meeting the cutoff. Some notable names that did not make the list include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Seinfeld, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, and Oprah Winfrey. The youngest member of the list is 38-year-old Lukas Walton, while the average age of the members is 70, with the eldest being 101-year-old David Murdock.
Despite the increase in net worth among the richest Americans, their philanthropy efforts have not kept pace. Forbes found that a significant portion of the list has donated less than 1% of their wealth so far, earning low scores on their philanthropy index. Only 2.5% of the list members have donated 20% or more of their fortunes, earning the highest marks. Forbes provides details on how they calculate The Forbes 400 and the full 2024 list on their website.
