60 Billionaires From CA Among Richest Americans: New Forbes List

CALIFORNIA — Billionaires in the Golden State got richer in 2023, according to The Forbes 400, an annual ranking of America’s super rich released Tuesday.

Overall, the 400 richest billionaires in America are worth $4.5 trillion, tying a record set in 2021. They are about $500 billion richer than they were a year ago, in large part because of rebounding stock markets and an AI-driven tech boom, Forbes said.

Billionaires had to have a net worth at least $2.9 billion to be included on the prestigious list, up from $2.7 billion a year ago. Forbes said its net worth calculations use stock prices from Sept. 8.

Oracle software development company founder Larry Ellison, 79, is the richest person in California. His worth is an estimated $158 billion and ranks third on the overall list. Last year, Ellison ranked fourth with $107 billion and was new to California's list.

Ellison skyrocketed to the top of the state's billionaires list, beating last year's number one Larry Page worth $114 billion. Other big names from California that made Forbes' top 400 include filmmakers George Lucas (net worth $4.9 billion) and Steven Spielberg (net worth $4.88 billion)

This year, however, the richest people in California, hail from the tech world (Oracle, Meta, Airbnb, Alphabet, WhatsApp, and Apple), finance and private equity, and real estate.

Notable billionaire entertainers and athletes aren't on the list this year. That includes Oprah ($2.8 billion), Kim Kardashian ($1.7 billion), Jay-Z ($2.5 billion), Tiger Woods ($1 billion), and LeBron James ($1 billion).

Other billionaires too poor to make the list: Apple CEO Tim Cook ($1.8 billion), Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg ($1.8 billion), and Donald Trump ($2.6 billion), according to Forbes.

Here are the top ten richest billionaires who reside in California:

• Larry Ellison - CTO and Founder of Oracle - Net worth $158 billion
• Larry Page - Co-founder of Google - Net worth $114 billion
• Sergey Brin - Co-founder of Google - Net worth $110 billion
• Mark Zuckerberg - Creator of Facebook - Net worth $106 billion
• Jensen Huang - Founder of NVIDIA - Net worth $40.7 billion
• Eric Schmidt - Former CEO of Google - Net worth $20 billion
• Donald Bren - Real estate baron - Net worth $18 billion
• Jan Koum - Co-founder of WhatsApp - Net worth $15.1 billion
• Laurene Powell-Jobs & Family - Most known for Apple and Disney - Net worth $13.4 billion
• Dustin Moskovitz - Co-founder of Asana - $13.4 billion

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform X, tops the list for a second year with an estimated net worth of $251 billion — $90 billion richer than Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and No. 2 on the list, and $93 billion ahead of Ellison.

Forbes also tracked the charitable giving of every member of The Forbes 400, and scored each person on a scale of 1 (those who have given less than 1 percent of their wealth away so far) to 5 (those who have given at least 20 percent). The richest people in America are, so far, not all that generous. Two-thirds of them have given less than 5 percent of their wealth away so far. Only 11 have donated 20 percent or more.

Most of California's top 10 richest people had philanthropy scores of 1 or 2, with Ellison and Page giving less than 1 percent of their wealth to charity. The most generous person in California's top 10 was Donald Bren, with a philanthropy score of 4.

Only two people on the list of Golden State billionaires scored a 5 — Former eBay presdient Jeff Skoll (net worth $4.4B) and known philanthropist Edythe Broad and family (net worth $7B).

Read more about Forbes’ methodology.