The small group of billionaires at the top of the ranking are richer than ever.
By Devin Sean Martin, Contributor
Even America’s billionaires are experiencing wealth inequality. The members of The Forbes 400 list of the nation’s richest people largely got richer this year, adding a collective $500 billion to their net worths. But most of those gains—totaling some $310 billion—came from just the top 20 people on the ranking.
As a group, the top 20 are richer than ever, worth nearly $1.9 trillion in aggregate. These 20 people are 30% wealthier than they were a year ago, on average, far outpacing the 12% average jump in wealth across the entire list. They hold 40% of the entire 400’s net worth, and could buy the bottom 340 billionaires—with billions to spare.
Few people had a better year than Jensen Huang, the cofounder and CEO of Nvidia. Huang rockets into the top 20 for the first time, thanks to a stock market rush for artificial intelligence investments. Shares of Nvidia, which makes more of the chips used in AI systems than anyone, are up more than 200%, making Huang the biggest gainer on the 2023 Forbes 400 list, up some 216% from last year. Worth an estimated $40.7 billion he’s now the 17th-richest person in America.
AI helped yield big gains for several other members of the top 20 as well. Larry Ellison added $57 billion to his fortune, the largest gain in dollar terms, as shares of his software firm Oracle jumped 69%; he moves up one spot, to No. 3. Mark Zuckerberg (No. 8), who dropped out of the top 10 last year for the first time since 2014, rode the coattails of Meta’s AI and costcutting-induced share price jump back to the top half of the top 20. Google cofounders Larry Page (No. 5) and Sergey Brin (No. 7) saw the shares of the search engine’s parent company Alphabet jump 27% since the company announced its AI tool suite in May. Bill Gates (No. 6) invested in AI chatbot startup Inflection.ai in June alongside Microsoft, which already has a stake in ChatGPT-developer OpenAI.
Total Net Worth Of The Top 20 On The Forbes 400 Over The Years
With Huang moving into the top 20, one person—Mackenzie Scott—dropped out, falling to No. 21 overall. Scott is down an estimated $600 million in wealth since last year, despite Amazon shares being up 8%, as she continues to aggressively give away the fortune she got when she divorced Jeff Bezos in 2019.
Only two members of the top 20 are worth less than they were a year ago: Charles Koch (No. 16), who fell three spots, and Nike founder Phil Knight (No. 18), who fell one spot following a 8% decline in the sportswear giant’s share price.
One thing that hasn't changed: who's on top. Elon Musk remains the richest person in America, for the second year running. At an estimated $251 billion, he’s worth exactly the same as last year—and $90 billion more than second-place Jeff Bezos, who’s worth an estimated $161 billion.
Nine of the top 20 are worth $100 billion or more, the most ever, and up from just four last year. The minimum net worth needed to crack the top 20 is now $38.9 billion, up from $37 billion a year ago.
Here’s a closer look at the 20 richest people on the 2023 Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans
NET WORTHS ARE AS OF SEPTEMBER 8, 2023
1. Elon Musk
Worth: $251 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Tesla, SpaceX
Far and away the richest person in America—and the world—for the second year in a row, Musk has spent much of the past 12 months picking fights. His targets have included Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky (over his proposed peace plan to end the war with Russia) and the foreign minister of Taiwan (over whether the territory should be considered part of China). He challenged Mark Zuckerberg (No. 8) to a cage match in June, two weeks before Zuck debuted Threads, Meta’s answer to Musk’s X (né Twitter). In September, Walter Isaacson’s bombshell biography of the mercurial mogul revealed fresh details on Musk’s involvement in the war in Ukraine, as well as the existence of a third child with his on-and-off partner, musician Grimes. That makes 11 kids in all. Despite the noise and an 8% drop in Tesla stock, Musk is just as wealthy as he was last year, after SpaceX hit a $150 billion valuation in a June tender offer and he got a fresh set of Tesla stock options, worth $5.7 billion, in January.
2. Jeff Bezos
Worth: $161 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Amazon
In May, the Amazon founder and executive chair reportedly got engaged to Lauren Sánchez, a former L.A. TV anchor whose apparent likeness he had carved onto the prow of his new 417-foot sailing yacht, Koru. Amazon’s share price is rebounding, thanks in part to higher profits and layoffs amid cost-cutting measures. The stock rally pushed Bezos’ net worth up $10 billion from a year ago, despite his giving away stock worth $700 million, mainly to combat homelessness and climate change. Most recently, he pledged $100 million to wildfire relief related efforts in Maui, where he owns a home.
3. Larry Ellison
Worth: $158 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Oracle
In absolute terms, no one in America has gotten richer this year than Ellison, who is $57 billion better off largely thanks to the generative AI craze helping pump up shares of his software firm, Oracle. In June, Ellison—the company’s cofounder, chief technology officer and 40% shareholder— took the opportunity to cash out $640 million (pretax) worth of stock options, the first time he has sold shares in two years. His $1 billion 2022 investment in Musk’s X, however, isn’t faring so well. The social media giant is worth an estimated two-thirds less than when Musk took it over last October.
4. Warren Buffett
Worth: $121 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Berkshire Hathaway
It was a happy birthday for the investing legend, who rang in his 93rd in late August with shares of Berkshire Hathaway at alltime highs. Buoyed by a big bet on Apple, which now makes up more than half of Berkshire’s equity portfolio, the stock is up 32% since last year’s ranking. That has helped make Buffett, whose $55 billion in lifetime giving makes him the most charitable American of all time, $24 billion richer despite his donation of a further $4.6 billion to the Gates Foundation and other charities this summer.
5. Larry Page
Worth: $114 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Google
Google’s 25th anniversary year was a lucrative one for its cofounder and former CEO, who is $21 billion richer this year thanks to a 26% jump in the shares of Google parent company Alphabet. In May, the low-profile Page attracted some unwanted attention, joining fellow cofounder Sergey Brin (No. 7) as the target of subpoenas from the U.S. Virgin Islands over an alleged connection with Jeffrey Epstein, about which they have not commented.
6. Bill Gates
Worth: $111 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Microsoft
The Microsoft cofounder is all-in on AI, penning a letter in March calling the technology “as revolutionary as mobile phones and the internet.” In June, Gates joined a $1.3 billion funding round for AI chatbot startup Inflection.ai. He personally invested alongside Microsoft, which has been benefiting from its own early bets on artificial intelligence, including an estimated 49% stake in ChatGPT developer OpenAI. Shareholders are bullish, too, driving up Microsoft stock 31% over the past year. Gates became a first-time grandfather in March.
7. Sergey Brin
Worth: $110 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Google
Like Gates, Brin is turning his focus to artificial intelligence. The Google cofounder, who stepped down as president of parent company Alphabet in 2019 but remains on the board, has returned to the tech giant in his most hands-on role in years, working on Google’s AI efforts. Alphabet shares have jumped 27% since Google announced its suite of AI tools in May.
8. Mark Zuckerberg
Worth: $106 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Facebook
After a terrible 2022 for Facebook parent Meta—with a collapsing share price, crumbling profits and significant fourth-quarter layoffs—the stock has done a U-turn that boosted Zuckerberg’s fortune by $48.3 billion this year.
9. Steve Ballmer
Worth: $101 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Microsoft
Long removed from the corner office at Microsoft, which he ran from 2000 to 2014, Ballmer mostly has basketball on the brain these days. He’s building—and privately funding—a superluxe $2 billion stadium for his Los Angeles Clippers, outfitting it with a 38,000-square-foot scoreboard and a players’ swimming pool and fretting over details as small as whether the home lockers should have space for 20 pairs of sneakers or 40. “This stuff is all fun,” he told Forbes earlier this year. “And I don’t have a bunch of shareholders to worry about.”
10. Michael Bloomberg
Worth: $96.3 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Bloomberg LP
In April, the Bloomberg cofounder committed to donating his 88% stake in his company, worth about $92 billion, to his charity Bloomberg Philanthropies before he dies. If he follows through, it will rank among the largest private donations ever. In the meantime, the former New York mayor is peeling off smaller bills from his fortune, giving away roughly $1.7 billion in 2022 to causes such as climate change and public health. In September, Bloomberg penned an opinion piece criticizing President Biden’s approach to the southern border, writing “Our long-broken immigration system has now become a full-blown crisis.”
11. Michael Dell
Worth: $71.5 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Dell Technologies
Shares of Dell Technologies are up 87% since last year, largely thanks to an insatiable demand for servers from AI companies and possible inclusion in the S&P 500. Dell himself is also in line for a potential $20 billion payday this fall if his cloud computing spinoff VMware is finally sold to semiconductor giant Broadcom for $61 billion after a year of regulatory battles. It’s just the latest deal for Dell, who has shepherded the company he started as a teenager through multiple restructurings, including two IPOs 30 years apart.
12. Jim Walton & family
Worth: $68.2 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Walmart
13. Rob Walton & family
Worth: $67.4 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Walmart
14. Alice Walton
Worth: $66.5 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Walmart
The heirs of Sam Walton (d. 1992) remain firmly in control of Walmart, holding more than 45% of the retailer’s shares, even after selling $4.5 billion (pretax) worth of stock in 2023. Denver Broncos owner Rob, who chaired the $611 billion (sales) company from 1992 until 2015, still sits on its board, alongside son-in-law Greg Penner and nephew Steuart Walton. Jim heads the family’s 219-branch Arvest Bank. Alice, the richest woman in America, has mainly focused on building the Crystal Bridges art museum in the family’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas. In March, she broke ground on the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine, set to open its doors in Bentonville in 2025.
15. Julia Koch & family
Worth: $59.8 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Koch Industries
16. Charles Koch & family
Worth: $54.5 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Koch Industries
Julia Koch has kept a low profile since inheriting the fortune built by her late husband, David Koch (d. 2019), and his brother Charles, who at age 87 remains at the helm of $125 billion (revenue) conglomerate Koch Industries.
17. Jensen Huang
Worth: $40.7 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Semiconductors
The AI craze has been a major boon for Huang’s Nvidia, which produces more of the chips used for artificial intelligence systems than any other company. Investors have pushed shares up more than 200% since last year’s ranking, making Nvidia one of six companies on the planet with $1 trillion in market capitalization, a mark it reached in June. The surge propelled cofounder and CEO Huang’s net worth up $28 billion—or 216%, the list’s biggest gain in percentage terms—making him one of the 20 richest Americans for the first time. Huang, a Taiwan-born Oregon State graduate, took Nvidia public in 1999 and has the company logo tattooed on his left arm.
18. Phil Knight & family
Worth: $39.5 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Nike
Knight got the Hollywood treatment this spring. Ben Affleck donned a track suit to portray him in the hit movie Air, which chronicles Nike’s lucrative signing of Michael Jordan (No. 379). A longtime Oregon resident, Knight and his wife, Penny, pledged $400 million in April to rebuilding Black Portland—specifically Albina, a historically Black neighborhood where he struck a handshake deal with his former University of Oregon track coach in 1964 to start Nike. The project will combine private investing and philanthropy. Knight has already given away $3.4 billion, mostly to his alma mater, in the hope of spreading the majority of his wealth to charity and not to Uncle Sam.
19. Jacqueline Mars
Worth: $38.9 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Candy, pet food
19. John Mars
Worth: $38.9 Billion | Source Of Wealth: Candy, pet food
The secretive Mars siblings own an estimated two-thirds of Mars Inc., the business behind M&M’s, Snickers, Ben’s Original rice and Iams pet food. Lately the $47 billion (2022 revenue) private company, founded by their grandfather in 1919 and run since 2001 by non-family CEOs, has been on a buying spree. It snapped up veterinary equipment firm Heska for $1.3 billion in June, added health brand Kevin’s Natural Foods in July and agreed to acquire a European specialist veterinary company called Synlab Vet in August.
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