Santa Cruz Billionaire Makes The Forbes 400 List

SANTA CRUZ, CA — Santa Cruz's own Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, once again made The Forbes 400 list of the nation's 400 richest billionaires.

Hastings, 60, is a founder of the wildly popular video streaming service. This year he snagged the number 188 spot on The Forbes 400 list with a net worth of $5.7 billion.

He first appeared on the list in 2017 with a net worth of $2.2 billion, according to Forbes.

Hastings started the company in Scotts Valley. It is currently headquartered in nearby Los Gatos and brought in an $11.6 billion profit over the past 12 months, according to Yahoo.

Hastings was one of 89 Californians who made the cut, including dozens of tech giants from the Bay Area.

No surprise here: The highest-earning Californian was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 37, of Palo Alto. He came in third overall with a net worth of $134.5 billion.

See also: 89 CA Billionaires Made The Forbes 400 List

Jeff Bezos, the founder of the e-commerce giant Amazon, again topped The Forbes 400 list. His net worth was $189.8 billion, according to Forbes' real-time wealth tracker. Bezos has topped the list for four consecutive years.

Rounding out the top five and the size of their fortunes at the end of trading Monday are Tesla founder Elon Musk ($190.5 billion), Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ($134.5 billion), Microsoft founder Bill Gates ($134 billion) and Google executive Larry Page ($123 billion).

Forbes said that though the pandemic made 2020 a terrible year for many, the wealthiest Americans continued to enjoy good economic times. Collectively, the personal fortunes of the 400 richest billionaires increased 40 percent over the past year to $4.5 trillion, up from $3.2 trillion the year prior

Nearly all are richer than they were a year ago, Forbes said, and the top 20 are worth $1.8 trillion.
Forbes calculated the net worth of those on the list using stock prices at Wall Street's closing bell on Sept. 3, which was close to a record high close for U.S. stock indices such as the S&P 500.

Among the 44 people who fell off the list was former President Donald Trump, who had been among the 400 richest Americans for 25 years. He continues to be a billionaire. He is as wealthy as he was a year ago, when he ranked 339, but he's lost $600 million since the start of the pandemic, Forbes noted. Big-city properties, which make up the bulk of the real estate mogul's holdings, have languished during the pandemic.

Newcomers to The Forbes 400 include cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, who at 29 is the youngest person on the list. He's worth $22.5 billion, ranks 32nd and is among seven cryptocurrency entrepreneurs on the list.

There are 56 women on the list, the same number as a year ago. Oprah Winfrey and Gap co-founder Doris Fisher fell off the list, but new to the list are Melinda French Gates, following her divorce from Bill Gates; and Miriam Adelson, heir to her late husband Sheldon Adelson's stake in the Las Vegas Sands casino empire.

Alice Walton remains the richest woman in America for the seventh year. The Walmart heir is worth $67.9 billion.

In all, 282 people on the list are self-made billionaires.