Richest Man In NJ Lives In Bergen County, But His Rank Dropped: Forbes

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — Forbes magazine released its annual "Forbes 400" list of the world's wealthiest billionaires on Wednesday, and once again, Bergen County-based communications magnate Rocco Commisso ranks highest in New Jersey — but his rank has dropped nationally.

Gosh, it's expensive to live in New Jersey, isn't it? But to be fair, he spent more than $400 million over two years on the Italian soccer club A.C.F. Fiorentina, he told Forbes in February.

Commissio, 74, lives in Saddle River. He's worth $7.7 billion, Forbes said.

Forbes said its net worth calculations use stock prices from March 8.

Commisso's wealth is up slightly from 2023, but it's not as high as his $8.4 billion net worth reported in 2021.

The Italian-American businessman is the founder and CEO of cable television company Mediacom.

This year, he ranked No. 322 on the Forbes list nationally, down significantly from his ranking of No. 114 last year.

The other New Jersey billionaire who made the cut is John Overdeck, 54, the co-founder of Two Sigma, a New York City-based hedge fund. Overdeck's net worth is $7.3 billion, the same as last year. Overdeck lives in Millburn.

Who Else Is On The List?

Globally, there are now more billionaires than ever — 2,781 in all, 141 more than last year and 26 more than the record set in 2021 — and they're richer than ever, according to Forbes.

Bernard Arnault and family topped the global list of 400 with a net worth of $233 billion. Arnault oversees the LVMH empire of 75 fashion and cosmetics brands, including Louis Vuitton and Sephora.

After that, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk — owner of the social media platform X — and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos were close in the second and third spots, with Musk at $195 billion and Bezos at $194 billion.

In fourth place is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at $177 billion, and in fifth is Oracle software development company founder Larry Ellison at $141 billion.

Singer Taylor Swift showed up on a new Forbes list of American billionaires, with $1.1 billion, but the news outlet noted that she's the first person to land there solely from songwriting and performing.

The majority of American billionaires live in four states: California, New York, Florida, and Texas.

Family ties often help people make the list, including Lukas Walton of Illinois, and Maryland-based Annette Lerner, 93, the widow of Washington Nationals owner Ted Lerner.

Of the others, most earned their money in four industries: finance and investments, fashion and retail, food and beverage, and technology. But some are in more specific industries such as public storage.

Patch Editor Cailin Loesch contributed to this report.