There aren’t many things $1 billion won’t get you, but a spot on The Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans is one of them. Not even $3 billion will do it. This year, the 400 wealthiest people in the U.S. are all worth at least $3.3 billion—a new record, and $400 million more than last year.
That high bar means scores of America’s most prominent billionaires are simply not rich enough to make the cut. In fact, for the first time ever, there are more U.S. billionaires not on the list—415 and counting—than on it.
These too-poor billionaires include celebrity moguls like Oprah Winfrey (estimated net worth: $3 billion), Kim Kardashian ($1.7 billion), Taylor Swift ($1.3 billion), Magic Johnson ($1.2 billion) and Arnold Schwarzenegger ($1 billion).
Dozens of prominent tech and finance leaders don’t have enough scratch either, including virtual reality scion Palmer Luckey ($2.4 billion), Scale AI cofounder Alexandr Wang ($2 billion), Bilt Rewards founder Ankur Jain ($1.2 billion) and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman ($1 billion).
Of course, there’s always next year. Just ask Jayshree Ullal, the president and CEO of Arista Networks, who was $100 million too poor in 2023 but, over the past 12 months, has ridden Arista’s skyrocketing stock price onto The Forbes 400 for the first time, with an estimated $4.4 billion net worth.
And Altman may rank among the richest 400 Americans soon enough, too: According to multiple reports, OpenAI........