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Subscribe to RSSThink the ever-tanking economy and turmoil in financial markets have affected even the coffers of the very rich? Not so, if we’re to judge from the just-released 2011 installment of The Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans.
Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is No. 14 with a bullet on the Forbes 400.
In fact, the cumulative wealth of the 400 richest Americans as calculated by Forbes rose 13 percent last year to $1.53 trillion for an average of $3.8 billion per list member.
Also on the rise this year are the fortunes of several young technology entrepreneurs, led by 27-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. A gain of $10.6 billion as calculated by Forbes propelled him to No. 14 on the list, with a net worth of $17.5 billion; last year, he was no. 35. Zuckerberg even overtook Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who each gained $1.7 billion in 2011, leaving them tied at no. 15.
Zuckerberg's is not the only Facebook face on the Forbes 400. Also making the cut are Facebook founding president Sean Parker, venture capitalist and Facebook backer Jim Breyer and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.
Other technology-related royalty on the list include LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, Groupon’s Eric Lefkofsky and Zynga’s Mark Pincus. It took a personal net worth of at least $1.05 billion to make this year's Forbes 400.
One thing that hasn't changed is the leadership of the billionaire brigade.
Microsoft chairman and co-founder Bill Gates holds steady as No. 1 on the list for the 18th straight year with a net worth of $59 billion. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
Warren Buffett is still the second-richest man in America, a status that probably wouldn't change even if his taxes were raised as he would like. Buffett did see his net worth fall by $6 billion last year as his Berkshire Hathaway holding company shed 10 percent of its value and he gave $3.27 billion to charity.
Here are the are the richest people in America and their net worth, according to the Forbes 400. For the entire list and more details, visit Forbes.com.
- Bill Gates, $59 billion (software)
- Warren Buffett, $39 billion (investing)
- Larry Ellison, $33 billion (software)
- Charles Koch, $25 billion (energy)
- David Koch, $25 billion (energy)
- Christy Walton, $24.5 billion (retail)
- Jim C. Walton, $21.1 billion (retail)
- Alice Walton, $20.9 billion (retail)
- George Soros, $22 billion (investing)
- Sheldon Adelson, $21.5 billion (casinos)
More on the Forbes 400:
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I find it interesting that of the top ten richest Americans, only two made it by investing and both of those individuals, Warren Buffett and George Soros, are Democrats.
While the others (presumably Republicans) made it by inventing new products & services, creating companies with huge numbers of new jobs?
I'm sure there are not more Democrats on the list because they are sending their large yearly "guilt" check, a la Buffett's suggestion, to the IRS. (sarcasm)
I'm pretty sure Bill Gates is a Democrat. He is huge friends with Buffett, his foundation's investments look like a liberal's dream and his father (Bill Gates Sr.) pushed a Democrat-leaning initiative to raise income taxes in WA state.
Steve Jobs is also very likely a Democrat: Al Gore is on Apple's board and Apple withdrew from the US Chamber of Commerce when it started moving far-right.
Eric Schmidt (Google chairman) is a Democrat and the odds are good that Larry and Sergei are too.
Sure looks like the most admired American companies are all Democrat run.
Please HNL the Waltons got on that list by exploitation. Exploitation of cheap manufacturing in Asia (aka taking jobs away from Americans), exploitation of cheap labor in America, and operating massive stores that put hard working Americans out of business.
Everyone knows the Koch brothers are the ones financing the TP movement (aka ruining America)
Adelson is a well established GOP who runs casinos, not exactly contributing much to our country either.
What does every Republican on that list have in common? They are all selfish hoarders of wealth.
It also goes to show that in America, the way to earn a fortune is by coming up with a new and improved way for people to engage in disinformation, waste an inordinate amount of time on matters that problebly won't change their lives or anyone else's for the better. And once sucked into the whole My Space, Facebook type of thing, you cannot change your mind and say...."this isn't what I expected and I really don't want to participate" So, of course it makes money. And I would guess that in the new era of social media, alot of that money is going to originate from politicians wanting to sway grass roots opinions.
Jealous much?
At least MySpace, Facebook etc got sold, has revenues or has/had a large user base. We are building a social networking product at a Fortune 500 company. The product quality sucks - it's slow, has poor user interface design and is logically incoherent. We've basically "licensed" someone else's product and slapped some images on it/customised it and called it ours. So much for building intellectual property. In that process, we have burned up $80-100 million in 2 years (and I don't know how) with no revenues to show nor a customer base. I am stunned by the fact that the executives here think they can actually sell this.
Just sitting here wondering if the Walmart kids ever have to run down to the store and fill in for a cashier? Just kidding. If I were one, I'd be happy as a kitten too. Luck of the draw. I was thinking back. Funny but my parents worked hard all their lives. When mom passed away us three kids were left an $8000 life insurance policy which we used for a nice funeral and headstone..... Maybe we should have started a retail junk store with it??? :-)
Sorry to comment again. I was going through the list and noticed that except for the Casino guy and nerdy Bill, all these people look kind of grumpy and mean. They must have a bunch of fun in real life don't they? I guess that for being stupid and unimaginative this is why I never made the list. At one Billion or even 500 million I would have said "OK, enough work, let's let the good times roll!!"
Facebook changed its site yet again, and looking at some of the new features seems to stealing more of your information to sell everyday. They want to go public but I can't understand why anyone would invest in a company that so blatantly ignores and abuses its customers
Fraud and general jerkness tend to yield good earnings reports. (Just ask bankers!)
Believe me, this will come to a startling halt when 6 million FB players revolt. Watch the FB news
You most likely won't believe this but most of the top 20 are supposedly Democrats.
A big portion of the top 20 are Democrats.
Looked it up and almost are all very big Democrats. I am sure that they all do a lot for various charities (it is a tax deduction if nothing else), but I don't understand why they feel the need to drive politics. Especially in a direction which is so far removed from their own lifestyles.
Democrats who are NOT opposed to paying their fair share of taxes too.
This article indicates to me that we not only have a problem with our work and what we produce in the US, but how we spend our money as well.
Where is Steve Jobs?
Counting his money?