| the FORBES 400
A record $2 billion net worth is now required to be counted among the very richest Americans. That means 176 billionaires were too poor to make the cut, and 13 members of last year’s list dropped off even though they are as rich or richer than they were a
1. Bill Gates
$89 billion self-made score: * age: 62 residence: Medina, Wash. dropout, Harvard
Harvard’s famous dropout was an autodidact from an early age. When he was a kid, he read the encyclopedia cover to cover. He wrote his first computer program—a tic-tac-toe game—at age 13. In 8th grade he hacked into a school computer to get students more programming time—and was caught and banned from using the computer through the end of the school year. Gates entered Harvard with plans to become a lawyer but dropped out when he was 19 to start Microsoft with his high school classmate Paul Allen (No. 22). Forty-two years later, it is the world’s biggest software maker, with $90 billion in revenues. Gates still sits on the board and owns 1.3% of the stock. But his focus since stepping down as Microsoft CEO in 2008 has been on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest private charity on the planet, which is working to eradicate polio and improve childhood vaccination rates in the developing world. In September he and his wife, Melinda, addressed the UN General Assembly, celebrating progress that’s been made and prodding world leaders to continue working to end extreme poverty and inequality.
2. Jeff Bezos
$81.5 billion self-made score: * source: amazon age: 53 residence: seattle B.s., princeton ’86
For four hours in July, Amazon’s founder and CEO was the richest person in the world when Amazon stock hit an all-time high. It’s a title he is likely to regain, given his ambitions. Bezos, whose fortune rose $14.5 billion since last October, has had a busy year: In August he closed the $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods Market (his biggest deal yet), signaling another direct challenge to traditional retailers. In September Seattle-based Amazon announced it was searching for a second North American headquarters. The 50,000 high-paying jobs on offer prompted an instant bidding war among cities ranging from Baltimore to Toronto. At a space symposium in April, the lifelong outer space fanatic said he’s been selling $1 billion of his Amazon stock a year to fund Blue Origin, a rocket firm. After studying electrical engineering and computer science at Princeton, Bezos worked at hedge fund D.E. Shaw but left just after his 30th birthday to start selling books online out of his garage in Seattle.
3. Warren Buffett
$78 billion self-made score: * source: berkshire hathaway age: 87 residence: omaha m.s., columbia ’51
One of the greatest investors of all time, the Oracle of Omaha couldn’t get into Harvard Business School. Buffett—who spent two years at Penn before transferring to the University of Nebraska— traveled ten hours to Chicago to interview for a spot at HBS. He was rejected within ten minutes. Instead he studied at Columbia under Ben Graham, who pioneered the value investing philosophy that made Buffett rich. His Berkshire Hathaway owns Geico, Dairy Queen and Fruit of the Loom and has large stakes in Coca-cola, Kraft Heinz and Wells Fargo. Flush with cash, he struck a deal in October for Berkshire to buy a 39% stake in Pilot Flying J., the truck stop operator owned by Jimmy Haslam (No. 206) and his family. Berkshire’s shares are up 25% in the past year, adding $12.5 billion to Buffett’s fortune; he is richer than ever despite giving $3.2 billion to charity this summer.
4. Mark Zuckerberg
$71 billion self-made score: * source: facebook age: 33 residence: Palo alto, calif. dropout, Harvard
More than a quarter of the world’s population is on the social media platform Zuckerberg cofounded in his Harvard dorm room at age 19. Now, amid an epidemic of Facebook-enabled fake news, he is starting to grapple with the power that comes with that reach. “We’ve been thinking about what our responsibility is in the world and what we need to do,” Zuckerberg recently told
Forbes. Outside of Facebook, he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are focused on the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the entity they created after pledging in 2015 to give away 99% of his Facebook shares over their lifetimes. The couple has committed $600 million to the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a research center with the heroic goal of preventing or curing all diseases by the end of the century.
5. Larry Ellison
$59 billion self-made score: ( source: oracle age: 73 residence: Woodside, calif. dropout, u. of chicago
Growing up, Ellison dreamed of going to medical school but hated his time as a premed student at the University of Illinois. “I just couldn’t make myself study something that didn’t interest me,” he said in his 2016 USC commencement address. He dropped out sophomore year after his mother died during finals week. Ellison then briefly studied physics at the University of Chicago, where he was introduced to computer programming. At 21, he dropped out again, threw his leather jacket and guitar in his car, and moved to Berkeley. There he joined the Sierra Club and was a river guide and rock-climbing instructor, working part-time as a computer programmer to pay the bills. He had jobs at several Silicon Valley companies but says he didn’t like any as much as he liked sailing. He wanted to be his own boss and founded the database-software giant Oracle in 1977. He resigned as its CEO in 2014 but still serves as its chairman. Oracle stock is up 25% in the past year, adding $9.7 billion to Ellison’s fortune.
6. Charles Koch
$48.5 billion self-made score: % source: diversified age: 82 residence: Wichita, kans. m.s., mit ’58, ’59
Koch pursued nuclear and chemical engineering degrees at MIT, where he was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He took over Koch Industries, now the nation’s second-largest private company, after his father, Fred, died in 1967. Charles transformed it into a world-beating conglomerate with interests in consumer products (Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups), textiles and manufacturing, partly by consistently reinvesting around 90% of profits. The longtime Republican megadonor is the cofounder of a network that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars influencing elections.
6. David Koch
$48.5 billion self-made score: % source: diversified age: 77 residence: new york city m.s., mit ’63
Before he helped run the show at Koch Industries, Koch was running up and down the courts as a college basketball star. The chemical engineer captained MIT’S basketball team and graduated as the university’s all-time scoring leader. Now an executive vice president at his family’s $100 billion (sales) conglomerate, Koch, who is a prostate cancer survivor, has become one of MIT’S biggest donors, giving $180 million for a cancer research center and a child-care facility and endowing the basketball head coach position. He’s not shy about his gifts: His name is on several Manhattan institutions, including Lincoln Center’s ballet theater and a plaza in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He donated $77 million in 2016, bringing his lifetime giving to $1.3 billion.
8. Michael Bloomberg
$46.8 billion self-made score: * source: bloomberg lp age: 75 residence: new york city m.b.a., Harvard ’66
The former New York City mayor, who flirted with running for president, is influencing policy with his pocketbook. After the Las Vegas shooting in October, Bloomberg announced on Twitter that he’d match donations to his gun control group, Everytown for Gun Safety. In September 2016 he pledged $300 million to Johns Hopkins for a public health initiative; he got his undergrad degree from the university, where he was a mediocre student and president of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, class president and self-proclaimed “Big Man on Campus.” After being fired in 1981 from Salomon Brothers, he cofounded the financial data and media firm Bloomberg LP. The terminal business was hit in 2016 by layoffs at some of its clients.
9. Larry Page
$44.6 billion self-made score: * source: google age: 44 residence: Palo alto, calif. m.s., stanford university ’98
The son of computer-science professors, Page got his first computer when he was 5. He majored in engineering at U. of Michigan, then started a doctoral program in computer science at Stanford. He got his master’s but never finished the PH.D., dropping out in 1998 to build Google with classmate Sergey Brin. Page served as Google’s CEO until 2001 and then again from 2011 to 2015. When Google reorganized, Page became CEO of its new parent company, Alphabet. Its selfdriving-car unit, Waymo, is embroiled in a highprofile lawsuit with the ride-hailing giant Uber (in which Alphabet’s venture capital arm is an investor) over trade secrets and patent infringement. When Page was deposed in July, he drew attention for his seeming lack of knowledge about key details, such as when Google invested in Uber.
10. Sergey Brin
$43.4 billion self-made score: ( source: google age: 44 residence: los altos, calif. m.s., stanford ’95
America’s richest immigrant, the Google cofounder gave a stirring pro-immigration speech in January following the announcement of Trump’s (first) travel ban. “I came here at age 6 with my family from the Soviet Union, which was at that time the greatest enemy the U.S. had . . . even then the U.S. had the courage to take me and my family in as refugees,” he said. His father became a math professor at the University of Maryland, where Brin later got his undergrad degree in math and computer science. Now Alphabet’s president, he is reportedly spending up to $150 million to build an airship inside a hangar at NASA’S Ames Research Center. The blimp will serve as his personal “air yacht,” but he hopes to fly it on humanitarian missions.
11. Jim Walton
$38.4 billion Self-made Score: @ Source: wal-mart age: 69 residence: bentonville, ark.
B.S., u. of arkansas-fayetteville ’71
12. S. Robson Walton
$38.3 billion Self-made Score: $ Source: wal-mart age: 73 residence: bentonville, ark. J.d., Columbia ’69
13. Alice Walton
$38.2 billion Self-made Score: ! Source: wal-mart age: 68 residence: fort worth, tex. B.S., trinity u. ’71
The last of Sam Walton’s children to hold a key role at Wal-mart, Jim retired from the board in June 2016, signaling a new era at the retail giant. Three months later, the company closed its acquisition of fast-growing e-commerce firm Jet.com in a bid to better compete with Amazon. This September, Wal-mart announced it was testing a service that will deliver and unpack groceries inside customers’ homes. Investors seem excited, pushing its stock up 13% in the past year and boosting the siblings’ net worths by a combined $8.4 billion.
14. Sheldon Adelson
$35.4 billion Self-made Score: ) Source: casinos age: 84 residence: las vegas dropout, City College of new york
The day Donald Trump was sworn in as president, the Republican kingmaker stood just behind him, among the president’s old friends and future Cabinet members. Adelson donated $5 million to the inaugural committee, more than twice as much as the next-biggest donor. Adelson did not endorse Trump initially, despite spending some $100 million trying to elect a Republican president in 2012. His donations are big money in the political world, but they hardly make a difference in his net worth. With his wife, the casino titan controls a majority stake in Las Vegas Sands and hauls in roughly $1 billion a year in dividends.
15. Steve Ballmer
$33.6 billion Self-made Score: ^ Source: microsoft age: 61 residence: hunts point, wash. B.a., harvard ’77
The high-wattage former CEO of Microsoft has been channeling his energy into cheering on the NBA’S Los Angeles Clippers, which he acquired in 2014. The team, now worth $2 billion, entered negotiations in June with the city of Inglewood, California, to explore building a new stadium there. Ballmer has long been a sports fan; he played lineman at Detroit Country Day School back when he was a 260-pound highschooler, then became a manager of the varsity football team at Harvard. He went on to Stanford for business school but dropped out to become Microsoft’s 30th employee.
16. Jacqueline Mars
$25.5 billion Self-made Score: @ Source: candy, pet food age: 78 residence: the plains, va. B.a., Bryn mawr ’61
16. John Mars
$25.5 billion Self-made Score: @ Source: candy, pet food age: 82 residence: Jackson, wyo. B.S., yale ’57
The siblings own two thirds of $35 billion (sales) candy maker Mars Inc., started by their grandfather and now best known for brands like M&M’S, Skittles and Snickers. The company completed its $7.7 billion (net) acquisition of animal-hospital chain VCA in September, adding to its pet-care division, which already includes Pedigree and Whiskas. Mars also announced plans to spend $1 billion on its future-generation initiative that, among other things, will work to reduce its carbon footprint by more than 60%. Jacqueline’s son Stephen Badger replaced cousin Victoria (No. 79) as chairman of the board this year.
18. Phil Knight & family
$25.2 billion Self-made Score: * Source: nike age: 79 residence: hillsboro, ore. m.b.a., Stanford ’62
A University of Oregon track athlete, Knight cofounded Blue Ribbon Sports, which eventually became Nike, with his former track coach Bill Bowerman. Knight had the idea for the company while getting his M.B.A. at Stanford, and he and Bowerman each put up $500 to start the company. Knight retired as Nike’s chairman in June 2016 after 52 years at the shoe giant. Last year he pledged $500 million to the University of Oregon and $400 million to Stanford, his alma maters.
19. Michael Dell
$23.2 billion Self-made Score: * Source: dell technologies age: 52 residence: austin, tex. dropout, u. of texas at austin
The PC company that Dell started in his University of Texas dorm room is now hardware and storage juggernaut Dell Technologies. Last year Dell pulled off one of the largest technology acquisitions ever, merging Dell with publicly traded EMC. The majority of his fortune is in MSD Capital, which has stakes in car dealerships and restaurant chains like Applebee’s. In May, Dell donated $1 billion to his nonprofit, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation; following Hurricane Harvey in August, the Houston native pledged $36 million to fund area relief efforts.
20. George Soros
$23 billion Self-made Score: ) Source: hedge funds age: 87 residence: katonah, n.y. m.s., london School of economics ’54
For the first time in its history, Soros Fund Management has a woman as its chief investment officer: Wall Street hotshot Dawn Fitzpatrick joined in April to manage Soros’ estimated $26 billion family office. Soros survived the Nazi occupation of his native Hungary, fled the Communist regime as a teenager and put himself through London School of Economics. He started a hedge fund in New York in 1969 with $12 million. The left-leaning billionaire has recently been vilified by Hungary’s prime minister for his support of migrants across Europe.
21. Elon Musk
$20.8 billion Self-made Score: * Source: tesla motors age: 46 residence: los angeles
B.S., u. of Pennsylvania ’97
The South African native headed to Queen’s University in Canada and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania to study physics and business. Today he runs 2 cutting-edge firms: His rocket company, Spacex, is reportedly worth more than $20 billion, thanks to a $350 million funding round in July. His electric-car maker Tesla is rolling out its latest vehicle, the Model 3, which starts at $35,000. Investors are pleased; Tesla shares have risen 70% in the last year.
23. Len Blavatnik
$19.6 billion Self-made Score: ( Source: diversified age: 60 residence: london m.b.a., harvard ’89
In August, a professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government reportedly resigned after learning that Blavatnik’s holding company, Access Industries, had donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s (No. 248) inauguration. In a statement, Blavatnik acknowledges that Access did donate to Trump’s inauguration. After attending Moscow State Univer-
sity, Blavatnik immigrated to the U.S. in 1978 to study computer science at Columbia. He made billions selling his stake in Russian oil company TNK-BP in 2013; now he has stakes in Warner Music Group and chemical company Lyondell Basel. He launched the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in 2007 and donated $50 million to Harvard in 2013.