With a net worth of $908 billion, Elon Musk again tops the Forbes 400, a ranking of the nation's wealthiest billionaires that includes Steve Cohen, the richest person in Connecticut.
Forbes said Musk's place at the top of its 45th annual Forbes 400 ranking shows "the wealth gap is widening, even among the ultra-rich." Those on the ranking, released Tuesday, are worth a record $8 trillion, up from $6.6 trillion a year ago. Together, the 20 richest billionaires account for $4 trillion of the total, up from $970 billion from last year.
"Elon Musk's trillionaire moment was short-lived, but the wealth controlled by the top 20 is massive," Forbes said.
Billionaires on the list from Connecticut are:
Steve Cohen — No. 43, $26.7 billion: The Greenwich resident oversees Point72 Asset Management, a hedge fund firm with $58 billion under management, according to Forbes. Cohen previously ran SAC Capital and bought the New York Mets in 2020 for $2.4 billion.
Ray Dalio — No. 62, $18.9 billion: The Greenwich resident founded Bridgewater Associates in 1975. The hedge fund firm now manages $92 billion, according to Forbes. Dalio stepped down as CEO in 2017, retired as co-chief investment officer in 2022 and sold his remaining stake in the firm by 2025.
Brad Jacobs — No. 98, $13.3 billion: Jacobs, a Greenwich resident, has built a fortune in logistics and other businesses. Much of his wealth now comes from Greenwich-based QXO, a publicly traded roofing and building materials company. He previously founded XPO Logistics and built United Rentals into a major equipment rental company.
Karen Pritzker — No. 211, $8.1 billion: The Branford resident is one of 13 billionaire heirs to the Pritzker fortune, which includes Hyatt hotels. She has also invested in public companies and hundreds of private biotech and medical-device firms.
Clifford Asness — No. 215, $8 billion: Asness cofounded Greenwich-based AQR Capital Management, a quantitative investment firm with about $260 billion in investor assets. He previously worked in quantitative research at Goldman Sachs before launching AQR in 1998.
Stephen Mandel Jr. — No. 302, $5.7 billion: The Greenwich resident founded hedge fund Lone Pine Capital in 1997. Mandel stepped back from managing investments in 2019 but remains a managing director of the firm.
Ratmir Timashev — No. 315, $5.4 billion: The Greenwich resident cofounded software company Veeam in 2006 and sold it to Insight Partners for $5 billion in 2020. Timashev is a newcomer to the Forbes 400 this year and in 2026 launched a venture capital firm aimed at bringing startups to Columbus, Ohio.
Even with the list threshold rising to a record $4.4 billion — up from $3.8 billion in 2025 — strong financial growth allowed 34 newcomers to join it. Notably, a record 590 U.S. billionaires were "too poor to make the cut," Forbes said.
Many of the 34 newcomers made their fortunes in artificial intelligence, including Cognition AI cofounder Steven Hao, six Anthropic cofounders and OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman.
The AI sector has come under intense scrutiny in Congress this week as high-profile tech leaders push for federal safety regulations and a reduced pace of innovation. These warnings follow mounting concerns about existential risks posed by advanced AI systems, echoed in an essay by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and supported by xAI's Musk and OpenAI's Sam Altman.
The list includes 62 women, including 13 who are self-made. Alice Walton remains the richest American woman, while ABC Supply cofounder Diane Hendricks is the richest self-made woman.
Ten listees are younger than 40, up from four in 2025. The oldest is 97-year-old timber billionaire Archie Aldis Emmerson, and the average age is 70.
The top 10 billionaires are
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