Forbes 400: Super Rich Are Getting Poorer, But Still ‘Doing Just Fine’

ACROSS AMERICA — For the first time since the Great Recession, the 400 richest Americans didn’t get wealthier this year, according to the 2022 Forbes 400 released this week.

As a group, the net worth of super rich Americans was down $500 billion, or 11 percent, to $4 trillion, Forbes said. The Forbes list is based on stock prices from Sept. 2.

“The rich don’t always get richer,” Chase Peterson-Withorn, Forbes’ deputy wealth editor said, noting that like many Americans, the wealthiest 400 people in the country are feeling the stock market slowdown.

“But they’re doing just fine,” he said. As a group, they are $1 trillion richer than they were in 2019 before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Elon Musk, who cofounded six companies, including electric carmaker Tesla and rocket producer Space X, topped the real-time list of super rich Americans for the first time with a real-time net worth Thursday of $263.2 billion. That’s up from $251 billion from Sept. 2.

He unseated Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had topped the list for four years. Bezos’ real-time net worth is $141.4 billion, down from $151 billion when the list was compiled.

Facebook founder and Meta Platforms co-founder Mark Zuckerberg was knocked out of the top 10, coming in at No. 11, down from No. 3 last year. His real-time net worth Thursday was $51.2 billion, down from $57.7 billion when the list was released.

Forbes said Zuckerberg has lost more than half of his fortune, $76.8 billion, since September 2021. No one on the Forbes 400 lost more money in the past year than Zuckerberg, the financial news outlet said.

Former president Donald Trump returned to the list after falling out of the ranking in 2021. Forbes lists his real-time net worth at $3.2 billion. Of note, Forbes noted, New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing Trump, three of his children and the Trump Organization for $250 million, claiming they had repeatedly and grossly inflated the value of his properties to obtain loans.

The other eight billionaires in the Top 10 and their real-time wealth Thursday are:

No. 3: Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation co-founder, $103 billion.

No. 4: Larry Elison, Oracle founder and CTO, $89.9 billion.

No. 5: Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway CEO, $95 billion.

No. 6: Larry Page, Google co-founder and board member, $86.6 billion.

No. 7: Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and board member, $83.1 billion.

No. 8: Steve Ballmer, Los Angeles Clippers owner, $78.8 billion.

No. 9: Michael Bloomberg, Bloomberg LP CEO, $76.8 billion.

No. 10: Jim Walton, Arvest Bank Group Inc. chairman and CEO, $57.9 billion.