by The rich don’t always get richer. As a group, the 400 wealthiest Americans are worth $4 trillion—$500 billion less than last year. The minimum net worth to make The Forbes 400 dropped for the first time since the Great Recession, down $200 million to $2.7 billion amid the market selloff. No one has been hit harder than tech billionaires, who have lost a combined $315 billion. Still, it was a great year to be an oil-and-gas tycoon, a sports mogul, or Elon Musk. And 42 people, spanning ages 29 to 90, joined or rejoined the ranks. Here we will see the 10 Most Richest Billionaires in USA 2022
1. Elon Musk
Net worth: $219 billion
Source of wealth: Tesla, SpaceX
Residence: Austin, Texas
Musk overtook Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person on Forbes’ 2022 list of the World’s Billionaires, buoyed by a rise in the share price of automaker Tesla. Musk, who ranked number two on Forbes’ 2021 list, first debuted on the Forbes billionaires list a decade ago, in 2012, worth $2 billion. The Tesla chief unloaded more than $16 billion of the electric vehicle maker’s shares over two months last year, likely resulting in the largest-ever one-year tax bill for an individual. What does he care? His fortune is still up $68 billion over the last 12 months. He is the Number 1 in the 10 Most Richest Billionaires in USA 2022
2 . Jeff Bezos
Net worth: $177 billion
Source of wealth: Amazon
Residence: Seattle, Washington
For the first time in four years, Bezos is not the world’s richest. His fortune is $6 billion lower than a year ago, due to a 3% drop in Amazon stock and an uptick in his charitable donations. Since giving up the CEO role in July, he has focused on other endeavors: his commercial space company, Blue Origin, launched him into the heavens last summer; he has reportedly bought a superyacht; and he stepped up his charitable giving by donating more than $1 billion in 2021 to causes such as Barack Obama’s foundation and environmental groups. He is the Number 2nd in the 10 Most Richest Billionaires in USA 2022
3. Bill Gates
Net worth: $129 billion
Source of wealth: Microsoft, investments
Residence: Medina, Washington
The now-divorced Microsoft cofounder has been busy writing, with a book out last year on how to battle climate change and another coming in May about preventing another pandemic. In March, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation joined a coalition to develop drug candidates to combat future global contagions. He is the Number 3rd in the 10 Most Richest Billionaires in USA 2022
4. Warren Buffett
Net worth: $118 billion
Source of wealth: Berkshire Hathaway
Residence: Omaha, Nebrask
Berkshire Hathaway shares sit at record highs after a string of deals. Last fall, Buffett made a well-timed bet on Activision Blizzard, plowing $1.1 billion into the video game maker’s shares three months before Microsoft agreed to acquire it for $69 billion. His Berkshire Hathaway has snapped up some $7 billion worth of Occidental Petroleum stock this year amid soaring oil prices. In March, he led the biggest acquisition in years when Berkshire agreed to purchase insurer Alleghany for $11.6 billion in cash. He is the Number 4th in the 10 Most Richest Billionaires in USA 2022
5. Larry Page
Net worth: $111 billion
Source of wealth: Google
Residence: Palo Alto, California’s
Larry Page, byname of Lawrence Edward Page, (born March 26, 1973, East Lansing, Michigan, U.S.), American computer scientist and entrepreneur who, with Sergey Brin, created the online search engine Google, one of the most popular sites on the Internet. He is the Number 5th in the 10 Most Richest Billionaires in USA 2022
Page, whose father was a professor of computer science at Michigan State University, received a computer engineering degree from the University of Michigan (1995) and entered into the doctorate program at Stanford, where he met Brin. The two were both intrigued with the idea of enhancing the ability to extract meaning from the mass of data accumulated on the Internet. Working from Page’s dormitory room, they devised a new type of search engine technology that leveraged Web users’ own ranking abilities by tracking each site’s “backing links”—that is, the number of other pages linked to them.
6. Sergey Brin
Net worth: $107 billion
Source of wealth: Google
Residence: Los Altos, California
Google cofounders Page and Brin (pictured above), who together retain a controlling stake and sit on the board of parent company Alphabet, began selling shares last year for the first time since 2017. Each has cashed out more than $1 billion since May 2021, Forbes estimates.
7. Larry Ellison
Net worth: $106 billion
Source of wealth: Software
Residence: Lanai, Hawaii
Oracle’s chairman and former CEO is more than $10 billion wealthier this year as shareholders cheered its transition into a cloud-based company. In September, Ellison snapped up a Lake Tahoe resort for $345 million. His sprawling real estate portfolio includes the Hawaiian island of Lanai, which he bought for $300 million in 2012, and at least ten properties on Malibu’s glitzy Carbon Beach.
8. Steve Ballmer
Net worth: $91.4 billion
Source of wealth: Microsoft
Residence: Hunts Point, Washingt
The NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, which the former Microsoft CEO bought for a lofty $2 billion eight years ago, are now valued by Forbes at $3.3 billion. Not a bad return. But it’s Microsoft stock that has really let Ballmer run up the score—its shares are up more than 600% over the same period, adding more than $65 billion to his net worth.
9. Michael Bloomberg
Net worth: $82 billion
Source of wealth: Bloomberg LP
Residence: New York City
The man whose Bloomberg terminals power Wall Street pledged $120 million to combat drug overdoses in November and $750 million to support charter schools in December. New York’s former mayor also spent $1.2 billion backing Democrats (including more than $1 billion on his own abortive White House run) in the 2020 election cycle. He’s more bearish about 2022, warning Dems in a recent opinion piece that “absent an immediate course correction, the party is headed for a wipeout in November
10. Mark Zuckerberg
Net worth: $67.3 billion
Source of wealth: Facebook
Residence: Palo Alto, California
Facebook renamed itself Meta Platforms in October as Zuckerberg sets his sights on building a nebulously defined (and potentially undesired) techtopia called the “metaverse.” He has good reason to escape the physical world, in which Meta shares have dropped by 50% since their September peak. He’s out of the world’s 10 richest for the first time in six years.
With reporting by Matt Durot, John Hyatt, Rachel Sandler and Chase Peterson-Withorn.
That’s it! Please let me know about your views, comment below for any clarifications
If you like my article, please don’t forget to share.
Also, to be notified about my new articles and stories, follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Cheers!
