Business & Tech

9 Massachusetts Billionaires Make Forbes 400

The top spot went to a woman who more than doubled the runner-up — which is her father.

Business is still good for Robert Kraft, who counts the $4.1 billion Patriots among his $6.9 billion fortune.
Business is still good for Robert Kraft, who counts the $4.1 billion Patriots among his $6.9 billion fortune. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

America’s richest keep getting richer. The wealthiest Americans on the annual Forbes 400 list grew their combined net worth by just over 2 percent from the previous year, making them worth $2.96 trillion in 2019.

In Massachusetts, nine billionaires made the Forbes 400, including four from the same family. Abigail Johnson, the CEO of Fidelity Investments, was once again far and away the richest person in the state with a net worth of $14 billion. Johnson was the 34th-richest person on the overall list; she doubled her father and more than quadrupled her brother and sister, who are all on the list.

Business is still good for Robert Kraft, who counts the $4.1 billion Patriots among his $6.9 billion fortune. See the full list of Massachusetts billionaires who made the list below.

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Overall, Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, is once again at the top of the Forbes 400. His ex-wife, Mackenzie Bezos, who got 25 percent of the couple’s shares in Amazon as part of their divorce settlement, is now the 15th richest person in America, according to the list.

According to Forbes, the minimum net worth to qualify for the list is $2.1 billion. The average wealth of those on the list increased by $200 million to $7.4 billion, Forbes writes.

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With the vast amounts of wealth in the pockets of those on the exclusive list, Forbes notes that a number of high-profile billionaires such as Kylie Jenner and Michael Jordan, didn’t even make the list.

Here are the Massachusetts billionaires on the list:

34. Abigail Johnson, 57, $14 billion — Johnson has been CEO of Fidelity Investments since 2014, when she took over for her father, Edward Johnson III. Her grandfather, Edward Johnson II, started the company.

79. Edward Johnson III, 89, $7 billion — Johnson was Fidelity's top executive for 37 years. His daughter has since replaced him.

82. Robert Kraft, 78, $6.9 billion — Kraft made his early fortune before buying the Patriots in 1994. Since then, that $172 million purchase has become a $4.1 billion sports empire.

85. Jim Davis (and family,) 76, $6.7 billion — Davis is the chairman of New Balance, the $4 billion shoe giant that evolved from the shoemaking company he purchased in 1972.

225. Amos Hostetter, Jr., 82, $3.6 billion — Hostetter invested in cable TV company in the 1960s, striking gold with what would eventually become Continental Cablevision.

268. Edward Johnson IV, 54, and Elizabeth Johnson, 56, $3.2 billion each — The grandchildren of Edward Johnson II, who founded Fidelity, and siblings of current Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson.

306. Alan Trefler, 63, $2.8 billion — Trefler founded software company Pegasystems in 1983.

355. Phillip (Terry) Ragon, 70, $2.4 billion — Ragon founded software company InterSystems in 1978.

The top 10 richest people in America for 2019 are:

Jeff Bezos: $114 billion
Bill Gates: $106 billion
Warren Buffett: $80.8 billion
Mark Zuckerberg: $69.6 billion
Larry Ellison: $65 billion
Larry Page: $55.5 billion
Sergey Brin: $53.5 billion
Michael Bloomberg: $53.4 billion
Steve Ballmer: $51.7 billion
Jim Walton: $51.6 billion

See the full list and read more via Forbes.

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