13 Illinois Billionaires Made Forbes List Of Richest Americans

ILLINOIS — Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is at the top of yet another list of billionaires, this time the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans. The list released Wednesday puts Bezos ahead of his Washington-area neighbor, Bill Gates, who had been at the top since 1994.

Bezos was also at the top of Forbes’ billionaires list, which was released in March. He dethroned Gates on that list as well.

The 400 richest Americans have a massive amount of wealth. According to Forbes, the minimum net worth needed to join the list in 2018 was $2.1 billion, the highest amount ever for admission. In all, Forbes says the net worth of the 400 was a record high of $2.9 trillion and half of that belongs to just the 45 richest people in the country.

In Illinois, 13 billionaires made it to the elite club. According to Forbes, the Illinois residents on the list are:

45. Ken Griffin, 50, net worth $10B (hedge funds)

114. Sam Zell, 77, net worth $5.6B (real estate, private equity)

172. Thomas Pritzker, 68, net worth $4.2B (hotels, investments)

179. Neil Bluhm, 80, net worth $4B, (real estate)

215. Joe Mansueto, 62, net worth $3.6B (investment research)

223. Mark Walter, 58, net worth $3.5B (finance)

251. J.B. Pritzker, 53, net worth $3.2B (hotels, investments)

251. Jean (Gigi) Pritzker, 56, net worth $3.2B (hotels, investments)

280. Patrick Ryan, 81, net worth $2.9B (insurance)

302. Penny Pritzker, 59, net worth $2.7B (hotels, investments)

316. Ty Warner, 74, net worth $2.6B (real estate, plush toys)

328. Joseph Grendys, 56, net worth $2.5B (poultry processing)

328. Eric Lefkofsky, 49, net worth $2.5B (Groupon)

Some other notable points from Forbes’ reporting:

• 57 women were on the list
• Those with self-made fortunes vastly outnumber those with inherited wealth
• President Donald Trump dropped 11 spots on the list compared to 2017, coming in at No. 259; see the New York Times account of how Trump accumulated his wealth, which differs significantly from the president’s account.

Forbes’ takes a hard and thorough look at the wealth of those on the list to figure out just how much they’re worth. Reporters at Forbes conduct interviews, look over documents, assets and factor in debt in their calculations. (You can see a more detailed methodology here.)

The top 10 billionaires on the list are:

1. Jeff Bezos (Amazon)
2. Bill Gates (Microsoft)
3. Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway)
4. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
5. Larry Ellison (software)
6. Larry Page (Google)
7. Charles Koch (Koch Industries)
8. David Koch (Koch Industries)
9. Sergey Brin (Google)
10. Michael Bloomberg (Bloomberg LP)

View the complete list and the full report on it at Forbes' website.

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