These GA Billionaires Are Among The Richest In The World: Forbes

GEORGIA — Twelve billionaires from Georgia are part of a $16 trillion club — the estimated net worth of the ultra-wealthy named Forbes’ 39th annual World’s Billionaires list released Tuesday.

The richest of them is Elon Musk, who is worth an estimated $342 billion. Musk divides his time between the Department of Government Efficiency, electric car maker Tesla, rocket company SpaceX, and artificial intelligence startup xAI, which he merged with his social media giant X last week. Musk added $147 billion to his fortune over the past year, Forbes said.

Rounding out the top five richest people in the world are three others from the United States, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg (estimated net worth $216 billion), Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ($215 billion) and Oracle’s Larry Ellison ($192 billion); and French luxury goods kingpin Bernard Arnault ($178 billion).

The richest people from Georgia on the list are:

• Trudy Cathy White, 69, food and beverage (estimated net worth $11.4 billion)
• Bubba Cathy, 70, food and beverage (estimated net worth $11.4 billion)
• Dan Cathy, 72, food and beverage (estimated net worth $11.4 billion)
• Arthur Blank, 82, sports (estimated net worth $9 billion)
• John Brown, 90, medical equipment (estimated net worth $8.4 billion)
• Gary Rollins and family, 80, pest control (estimated net worth $6.9 billion)
• Jim Kennedy, 77, media and automotive (estimated net worth $6.6 billion)
• Dan Kurzius, 53, email marketing (estimated net worth $5.6 billion)
• Ben Chestnut, 50, email marketing (estimated net worth $5 billion)
• Neal Aronson, 60, private equity (estimated net worth $4.1 billion)
• Tony Townley, 62, fast food (estimated net worth $1.2 billion)
• Zach McLeroy, age unavailable, fast food (estimated net worth $1 billion)

Billionaires McLeroy and Townley, best friends and Zaxby’s founders, hail from Athens. They turned a $16,000 start-up into fortune by earning at least $1 billion each from the widespread company, Forbes reported.

In 2020, Townley’s portion of Zaxby’s was sold to Goldman Sachs for almost $1 billion; 20 percent of McLeroy’s share was sold to Goldman, Forbes reported.

Townley became Zaxby’s largest franchisee, with at least 140 restaurants, but is no longer a leader at the chicken-finger empire, Forbes reported. McLeroy resigned as CEO in 2022 but sits on the board.

“We’re really emotionally attached to the business,” McLeroy told Forbes about the sale. “We both wanted to go in a different direction.”

Forbes used stock price and exchange rates from March 7, 2025, but monitors the real-time wealth of billionaires, which can result in shifts in rankings over time.

Forbes said the billionaire bonanza extends beyond the United States. A record 3,028 people around the globe made the list, 247 more than last year. They’re worth a combined $16.1 trillion, $2 trillion more than last year, and more than the GDP of every country in the world besides the United States and China, Forbes said.

The average fortune now stands at $5.3 billion, up $200 million from 2024.

The United States has a record 902 billionaires, more than anywhere else on the planet. They include 103 new billionaires, also a record among other nations with billionaires.

Two of the richest U.S. newcomers are Marilyn Simons (estimated net worth $31 billion), the widow of quantitative hedge fund manager Jim Simons, and Lyndal Stephens Greth ($25.8 billion), the daughter of oil and gas tycoon Autry Stephens, who died in August.

Simons and Stephens are two of just 406 women among the World’s Billionaires, only 13.4 percent of the list, up slightly from 13.3 percent last year. Nearly three-quarters inherited their fortunes. That includes the world’s richest woman, Walmart heir Alice Walton ($101 billion), who has overtaken French L’Oreal heir Francoise Bettencourt Meyers ($81.6 billion) for the top spot among women.

Only 15 percent of the new billionaires on the 2025 list are women, and nearly two-thirds of them inherited their wealth. The richest exception: 71-year-old Barbara Banke (estimated net worth $2.6 billion), who cofounded Jackson Family Wines, known for its Kendall-Jackson wines from Sonoma, with her late husband Jess Jackson, who died in 2011.

Celebrity newcomers include rock star Bruce Springsteen, worth an estimated $1.2 billion, movie star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ($1.1 billion), and comedian Jerry Seinfeld ($1.1 billion).

Few billionaires have had a better year than President Donald Trump—and not just because he retook the U.S. presidency. Before moving back into the White House, he padded his cash pile with a very lucrative move into crypto. Between that and his Trump Media & Technology Group going public just after Forbes locked in its 2024 rankings, the president’s net worth has more than doubled, from an estimated $2.3 billion to an estimated $5.1 billion.

For comparison, the average net worth of American households is about $1.06 million, while the median net worth is $192,900, according to the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, the most recent assessment available.