GEORGE BISHOP

$2.4

BILLION  SELF-MADE SCORE: & SOURCE: OIL & GAS AGE: 82 RESIDENCE: THE WOODLANDS, TX PHILANTHROPY SCORE: Bishop founded GeoSouthern Energy in 1981 and became an early investor in the Eagle Ford shale of South Texas, one of the largest natural-gas plays in the U.S. He sold GeoSouthern’s fields there to Devon Energy for $6 billion in 2014, sharing the payday with Blackstone Group. He reinvested the proceeds in the Haynesville shale of Louisiana the following year. Earlier this year, Bishop endowed a geology scholarship in his name at Mississippi State University, his alma mater.