How America's Richest Billionaires Made Nearly $1 Trillion In A Year

Forbes

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 make the list, up from $2.9 billion in 2023.  Executive Editor Luisa Kroll chats with Senior Editor Chase Peterson-Withorn about who made the list and how these billionaires made their fortunes.  The Forbes 400 is our annual ranking of the richest Americans. Our estimates are a snapshot of each members wealth as of September 1, 2024.   Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2024/10/01/the-2024-forbes-400-list-of-wealthiest-americans-facts-and-figures/  0:00 Introduction 0:37 How Did Billionaires Fare Over The Past Year? 1:30 Forbes 400 History 2:30 Who's On The List 4:22 The $100 Billion Club 5:03 Forbes 400 Newcomers 8:07 Self-Made Billionaires On The List 9:04 Women On The 400 10:49 What Industries Min The Most Billionaires? 12:53 Why Should We Care? 14:44 Who Are The Biggest Philanthropist In America? 16:45 How Donald Trump Made The 400 18:45 Who Fell Off The 400? 19:35 How Many People Work On The Forbes 400  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Hi, my name is Louisa Kroll, and I'm an Executive Editor at Forbes.

00:08I'm really excited to be here today with Chase.

00:12He is my longtime colleague, but he is the person that's in charge of the entire Forbes

00:19400 list.

00:20Congratulations, Chase.

00:22Today is launch day, and I know that's always a huge deal.

00:26Believe it or not, we've been doing this list since 1982, so that makes it the 43rd

00:32year.

00:33So, Chase, tell me what folks should know about this year's list.

00:36Yeah, so it is just a monster year for the richest people in America.

00:42Markets are surging.

00:43You know, there's a lot of enthusiasm for AI, and honestly, pretty much any publicly

00:48traded company is sort of up these days.

00:52And with stock markets so high, billionaires are really, really doing very well.

00:57So the Forbes 400 is richer than ever.

00:59They're worth $5.4 trillion in total, which is almost a trillion dollars more than a year

01:06ago.

01:07And the cutoff to make the list is higher than it's ever been, so it's $3.3 billion.

01:14Okay, so it's $3.3 billion.

01:16What was it last year?

01:17It was $2.9 billion last year, which tied the previous record.

01:22Basically, the Forbes 400 has just smashed right through that.

01:25It's $400 million more now it takes just to be among the Forbes.

01:28Wow, that's crazy, crazy.

01:29I don't want to put you on the spot, but do you remember what the cutoff was the very

01:33first time we published that list?

01:36Yeah, all the way back in 1982, when we did the first Forbes 400 list, it took $100 million

01:41to make the 400, which is equivalent to about $320 million today.

01:46So billionaires have very much outpaced inflation over the past four decades.

01:51Wow, that's interesting.

01:53And when was the first time that we had all billionaires on the Forbes 400?

01:58It was 2006.

01:59So it took from 1982 to 2006 for the cutoff to hit a billion, and we've more than tripled

02:06that now just in less than a couple decades.

02:09Okay, now before we get to the list highlights, so how many billionaires don't make the cut?

02:14Yeah, so this is the first year that there are more Americans who, more American billionaires

02:20who don't make the 400 than there are who do make the 400.

02:23So we counted 415 U.S. billionaires who are too poor to make the list of the 400 richest

02:29Americans.

02:30Wow, that's crazy.

02:31That's crazy.

02:32All right.

02:33Well, let's start at the top.

02:34Who's number one?

02:35Number one this year is Elon Musk.

02:38He's poorer than he was last year.

02:40He actually lost $7 billion in net worth over the past 12 months, and he's still the richest

02:45person in America by a long shot.

02:48He's worth $244 billion, and that's well ahead of second place Jeff Bezos.

02:54All right.

02:55So how many years has he held the number one spot?

02:59This is Musk's third year in the number one spot on the 400 list, and he's also the richest

03:04person in the world.

03:06So his lead is definitely tightening.

03:10Bezos is catching up.

03:12Bezos got richer over the last year, and Musk did not.

03:15Okay.

03:16Any other notable changes in the top 10 or 20 in terms of order?

03:20I know that that always seems to be something that people are interested in.

03:26Any big movements?

03:27Yeah.

03:28So, you know, I think the big overall trend is that they're almost all richer.

03:32Just about every single one of them is richer, and a lot of them by billions or even tens

03:36of billions of dollars.

03:37I think maybe the two most interesting, you know, gainers, I guess, in the top 20 are

03:45Jensen Huang, the co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA.

03:49Of course, NVIDIA has sort of gone through the roof, you know, in recent years.

03:54And you know, he propelled himself into the top 20 last year, and this year he's jumped

03:59even more ranks, and he ranks 11th now, and he's worth, I think, $104 billion.

04:04That's a big one.

04:06And then the other one is Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, who fell out of the top 20 for

04:12the first time in a long time, a couple years ago, and he's come roaring back, and he's

04:16all the way up to number three now.

04:18So just a little bit behind Bezos and Musk.

04:22So you just reminded me of something.

04:25Jensen is worth over $100 billion.

04:26I mean, really, I think that it's only been in the past few years that we've even had

04:32anybody that was over $100 billion.

04:35How many are we up to today?

04:37So we're up to a dozen billionaires in the $100 billion club, American billionaires.

04:43So yeah, it was a, you know, I started working on the Forbes 100 a decade ago now, I guess.

04:49And the thought of somebody being worth $100 billion was a pretty, you know, I wouldn't

04:54say far off thought, but I mean, we were not there yet.

04:57And now we have 12 people there and counting.

05:00Okay, great.

05:02And so who are some of the notable newcomers?

05:04I mean, it's hard to even imagine somebody worth $3.3 billion kind of coming out of nowhere,

05:11or at least, you know, us being able to prove the number, but there are some new folks,

05:16right?

05:17Yeah.

05:18Yeah.

05:19I mean, you know, it's a very difficult list to make, of course.

05:21And with the minimum net worth going up so much this year, it's even tougher than in

05:27other years.

05:28But still, 23 people were able to do it, and were able to amass a big enough fortune that

05:33they could sort of take spots from, you know, from 23 other billionaires.

05:38And so, you know, they've made fortunes in everything from plastic pipes to, you know,

05:44artificial intelligence.

05:45We've got, maybe some of the most interesting ones are Leonid Radvinsky, who is the owner

05:52of OnlyFans, the, you know, social media site, Todd Graves, the founder of Raising Cane's

05:58Fried Chicken, and Peter Cancro, the founder of Jersey Mike's Subs, and then, you know,

06:03of course, a whole host of, you know, tech billionaires like Jayshree Ullal, who is the

06:08head of Arista Networks, the cloud computing company.

06:11Well, I have to confess, I've never tried Raising Cane's or Jersey Mike's, though my

06:16husband has had had Jersey Mike's, but, you know, consumer spending is obviously something

06:22that I always find really interesting, especially when you drive around the country and you

06:27see which brands are doing super well.

06:30Are there any other like kind of big name brands that have had movement on the list?

06:36I know Chick-fil-A is always one that seems to, you know, keep increasing.

06:43Are there other brand names that, you know, folks might recognize?

06:48Yeah, I actually think the most interesting one of all might be Dick's Sporting Goods.

06:53You know, the stock is up is up a ton.

06:55And, you know, the billionaire behind Dick's, Ed Stack, is a big gainer and new to the 400, I

07:01think, or maybe a returnee this year.

07:04So big, big year.

07:06That's super interesting.

07:07That's also super interesting because Phil Knight is one of the only, not only, but he is

07:12down this year in a year where there are a lot of people, Phil Knight of Nike, in a year when

07:19a lot of people have gone up, right?

07:21Yeah, exactly.

07:22So, you know, Nike stock has sort of had a rough go of it in recent years.

07:29And I think they were hoping that their very prominent role in the Olympics this summer

07:34would sort of turn things around and kind of hasn't.

07:37So, yeah, Phil Knight is down big.

07:39And meanwhile, you might think brick and mortar retail is totally dead.

07:42And there's Ed Stack of Dick's Sporting Goods.

07:45The other thing about, yeah, the other interesting thing about Stack versus Knight is that Phil

07:52Knight started Nike, I think, from the back of a van or something.

07:57I can't quite remember.

07:58I know it was blue ribbon shoes.

08:00Anyway, many years ago.

08:01And I think it was Ed Stack's dad who actually founded Dick's Sporting Goods initially.

08:07So tell me how many of the people on the list are self-made versus how many have inherited

08:14their fortunes?

08:16Yeah, so the list is overwhelmingly self-made.

08:19It's something like two thirds of the members of the Forbes 400 established their fortunes.

08:25You know, we say on their own, but of course, everybody has help and luck.

08:28And these billionaires oftentimes are the first people to say that.

08:32But, you know, they didn't inherit their money.

08:34They sort of established it.

08:37And so two thirds of the list is self-made.

08:39That number has risen a lot since we started doing this, you know, four decades ago.

08:43I mean, less than half of the list would have been self-made back then.

08:46You still had these great family fortunes, which over time have dissipated or they've just been

08:51overtaken with, you know, good old fashioned competition and, you know, upstarts and younger

08:56billionaires and the tech revolution and all of that has sort of led to the list becoming, you

09:01know, quite a bit more self-made over time.

09:04Great. All right.

09:05I want to quickly hit on one of my favorite topics, or maybe that's the wrong term.

09:11But let's talk about the women on the list, which has actually been something that has, you

09:15know, pained me a lot over the years.

09:17But where are we now?

09:18How many women have actually made the cut?

09:21Yeah, so the Forbes 400 is certainly very much a list mainly of old white men, not entirely

09:31old white men. There's lots of, you know, of interesting

09:34stories there of people who are not old white men, but it really is, you know, and I think

09:41that's reflective of, you know, society and all of the obstacles that women have faced.

09:47And it takes a long time to build a billion dollar fortune.

09:50And decades ago, when a lot of these people were getting started, it was even harder than it is

09:55today, you know, for women who wanted to be entrepreneurs.

09:59So, you know, this year we have 67 women on the Forbes 400 list, which, you know, comes out to,

10:06you know, a pretty low number, but it's up seven, you know, there's seven more women than last

10:11year. So there is progress.

10:13It's slow and steady, but it is progress.

10:15And 13 of those women are self-made women, which has got to be the most ever.

10:20And that's people like Diane Hendricks of ABC Roofing Supply, who's the richest self-made

10:25woman. Jayshree Ullal of Arista Networks, Meg Whitman, who is the CEO of eBay and Hewlett

10:32Packard, and now is the U.S.

10:33Ambassador to Kenya.

10:35You know, so there's, you know, you can you can certainly make the 400 as a woman and as a

10:41self-made woman. But, you know, there is some hope and it is getting better every year

10:48slowly. OK, let's quickly talk about industries, because you mentioned a couple of times

10:54about AI and Jayshree.

10:57What are the areas where it's kind of easiest or, you know, where should I be starting my

11:03business if I want to have the best chance of making the Forbes 400?

11:07Yeah, so, you know, you can you can make a Forbes 400 level fortune in just about anything.

11:14And I mean, you know, there's people in industries as wide ranging as, you know, boring,

11:19somewhat boring stuff. Like I mentioned, you know, plastic piping or roofing supplies.

11:23And, you know, things like that all the way up to, you know, Elon Musk launching his own car

11:29brand and, you know, all of the stuff that he does that's sometimes pretty exciting.

11:34But, you know, there are some industries that are more likely than not to make you rich, I

11:40would say. And certainly finance and investments is the industry that is probably the

11:46likeliest. More than a quarter of the list are finance and investment billionaires.

11:51They're worth a combined one point three trillion dollars.

11:54So, you know, a lot of money to be made there.

11:57The other one would be tech, of course.

11:59You know, all businesses are increasingly tech businesses these days.

12:03But people who are really in the technology industry have made some pretty amazing fortunes

12:09and pretty quickly.

12:11You know, there aren't as many tech billionaires as there are finance and investment

12:14billionaires, but they are the richest bunch on the Forbes 400.

12:17I mean, they're worth one point eight trillion out of the whole list, five point four

12:21trillion. So that's a that's a good way to do it.

12:24And another, I would say, is just food and beverage.

12:26You know, a lot of these, you know, fast food companies, food distributors, people with, you

12:34know, energy drinks and things like that.

12:36It's another good way to make 400.

12:38All right. So money begets money.

12:41You come up with something really innovative or give people what they want to eat or drink.

12:48OK. Good things to think about.

12:51So one of the questions that I used to always get when I was in your position, and just to be

12:58clear, Chase is the top editor on this entire project.

13:04So if there are any billionaires listening and you're unhappy with your net worth, Chase is the

13:08person to call.

13:10And I'm sure we'll be hearing from a lot of these folks.

13:12But joking aside, why do we care so much about these wealthy people?

13:18Yeah, it's a great question.

13:19I think that the Forbes 400 is really a map of the great fortunes in America.

13:28And it's not just something that's interesting to sort of peruse or, you know, interesting to

13:33sort of look at the lifestyles that these billionaires have or something like that.

13:38But I think it's a lot more important than that.

13:40You know, great wealth is great power, especially in America.

13:45And you really can't have these conversations about, you know, who these people are and what

13:52they're doing and whether it's a good or a bad thing or the public policy debates about

13:56whether we should tax, you know, unrealized capital gains or whether you should billionaires

14:02should be allowed to exist or, you know, all of these public debates that are raging on.

14:05I mean, especially right now during an election year, you can't really have an informed

14:09debate about that if there isn't somebody who's chronicling who these people are, how much

14:14money they have, meaning how much power they have and what they're doing with it, where

14:17are they spending it, how are they spending it, how are they using it to get richer or

14:22influence the world around them or the world of politics or all of that.

14:25And so the 400 is really this big investigative project that sort of seeks to provide that

14:31that data that allows us to have these conversations about wealth in America.

14:35I mean, we're really probably the the only people who have been chronicling wealth of the

14:41ultra wealthy over the past four decades.

14:45Related to that, you know, I've noticed that, you know, there are some billionaires that

14:52are very, very public about their role and, you know, want to pay more taxes.

14:58There are others that really want to kind of defend their money and keep it so that they

15:02can kind of pour it back into the economy in other ways.

15:07I'm curious, how generous are these people?

15:10How philanthropic are they?

15:12You know, are they using their money for good?

15:15Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that we track, in addition to tracking the wealth

15:22of the 400 richest Americans, is we track how much money they've given away to charity.

15:27And many of these people are America's great philanthropists.

15:32These are the people whose names you're going to see when you go to great museums or when

15:36you're on college campuses and their names are all over, you know, a wing at the Met or

15:41this dorm at Brown or something like that.

15:45Or, you know, the people who are pumping a lot of money into local charities, too.

15:52Yet when you start to look into how much money they've actually given, it's really not

15:57that much. And that's definitely a little bit surprising.

16:00But, you know, we counted up something like $287 billion that we could find in

16:06charitable giving that has actually gone to those in need from the 400 richest people in

16:10America. And don't get me wrong, $287 billion is a lot of money, but it's also

16:16equivalent to something like 5% of the Fortune 400's total wealth.

16:20So it's not that much money.

16:22And, you know, a third of the list has given away less than 1% of their fortune over their

16:27lifetimes. And only 10 people on the Fortune 400 have even given away 20% of their

16:32fortune. Wow, that's crazy.

16:34Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, Buffett and George Soros and Mackenzie Scott and, you

16:38know, some of the people who everybody knows are, you know, the sort of very generous.

16:43Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

16:45All right. So one person we have not talked about, but is probably on a lot of people's

16:52minds, is Donald Trump.

16:54Now, he did not make the list last year.

16:57Does he make it this year?

16:59Yes. So Trump fell off the 400 twice in the past three years, and he fell off in the early

17:0590s during, you know, his sort of first round of bankruptcy.

17:09Yeah, many.

17:10But Donald Trump is back on the Forbes 400 this year.

17:14The main reason for that is Truth Social.

17:17You know, he took Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social,

17:20public via a SPAC merger earlier this year in March.

17:24And the shares rose substantially when he took it public.

17:29And even though they've fallen something, you know, like 30, more than that, actually,

17:33they've fallen quite a bit since then, he's still up by enough to make the cut for the

17:38400. So last year he was worth something like $2.6 billion.

17:41This year we have him at $4.3 billion, which is, you know, a billion dollars above the

17:46cutoff for the Forbes 400 list.

17:48Although since we've locked in the Forbes 400 list and gone to press with it, the shares

17:53of Truth Social have slid and continue to slide.

17:57And we have him down in the $3 billion range now, high threes.

18:01So remind me, when do we lock in prices?

18:04Because again, this is a snapshot of wealth on one particular day when we kind of freeze

18:10everything. For people that want to see, you know, kind of movements, we have a real time

18:15tracker that's on our website.

18:17But this list is once a year, one day a year.

18:21What day is it?

18:22Yeah, exactly. So this year's list is as of September 1st, 2024.

18:27And that's just, you know, print deadline, sending a list to a magazine printer.

18:32We have to pick a day that we sort of take that snapshot and say, OK, here's what

18:37everybody was worth on this one day.

18:39And so that was September 1st this year.

18:41OK, great. So who dropped it off?

18:44Who made it last year?

18:45Who was squeezed out by these new faces?

18:48Yeah, so 30 people fell off the list.

18:51A couple of the most notable ones, I think, are Vince McMahon, the billionaire behind

18:56WWE. He's facing allegations of sexual assault that he has denied.

19:01There's reportedly a Department of Justice probe looking into it.

19:05In January, he stepped down as the head of TKO Group, which is the company that

19:10WWE was merged into.

19:12And he said he was selling all of his shares.

19:15So he fell off the Forbes for 100 list.

19:17Another interesting one, I think, is Rodney Sachs.

19:19So we were talking about how great food and beverages.

19:21That's Monster, right?

19:22Yeah, Monster Energy Drink.

19:25Because it's so much competition.

19:27My daughter comes home with a new one every week.

19:30We're actually running out of time.

19:32So I have two quick questions I wanted to ask you.

19:35One is how many people help you on this list and how difficult is it to put this list

19:42together? Sure, it is a very difficult list to put together.

19:46And it takes a couple of villages, I would say.

19:49So we have dozens of reporters.

19:51The wealth team is incredible.

19:55It is the biggest, probably the biggest investigative project that is done in business

19:59journalism on an annual basis.

20:01And we've got a group of a couple dozen people who have been working on it for a very

20:05long time and are very good at sort of digging into finding the money that billionaires

20:10don't want you to find.

20:13And then so who are some of the people that you think will be on next year's list, if

20:18you had to guess, or in the next few years?

20:20Who are you watching? Yeah, so always hard to predict the future, but we love to try.

20:26I think that, you know, anything that says has AI attached to it right now is going

20:31through the roof. And so we'll see if that continues or if that sort of starts to cool

20:36off. But Alexander Wang of Scale.ai, you know, keeps raising money at big valuations.

20:41He's super young and totally can make the 400 a day.

20:44And similarly, I think Palmer Luckey, sort of this wunderkind billionaire who sold

20:49Oculus VR to Facebook a long time ago now and has a new startup called Enduro that is

20:55a defense contractor that keeps raising money.

20:58And I think the most interesting person is Taylor Swift, who's pretty far from the

21:01Forbes 400 cut right now.

21:03You know, she's worth 1.3 billion.

21:06But, you know, she's just wrapped up or is wrapping up her heiress tour.

21:09She's maybe working on a new album.

21:11There will be more music to come.

21:13There will be more touring to come.

21:14And if anybody can, you know, can make three.

21:18Yeah, all she has to do is create a new beverage and that plus her music and she'll be

21:23there. Thank you so much, Chase.

21:26As you can tell, I can talk about this all day.

21:29So thanks so much for coming on and talking about it.

21:31And congratulations again on another phenomenal job.

21:37Yeah, thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.

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