With a net worth of $908 billion, Elon Musk again tops the Forbes 400, a ranking of the nation's wealthiest billionaires that includes Lukas Walton, the richest person in Illinois.
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.
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"Elon Musk's trillionaire moment was short-lived, but the wealth controlled by the top 20 is massive," Forbes said.
Walton is the grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton. The 39-year-old is worth $44.4 billion, according to Forbes.
Other billionaires on the list from Illinois are:
Others on the list are (listed with their U.S. ranking):
- Ranked No. 141 — Charlie Mills, 65 years old (net worth of 11 billion), is chairman of Illinois-based medical supplies giant Medline, which his father and uncle founded in 1966.
- Ranked No. 159 — Neil Bluhm, 88 years old (net worth of $9.9 billion), owner of marquee Chicago properties like 900 North Michigan and the Ritz-Carlton Chicago.
- Ranked No. 167 — Patrick Ryan, 88 years old (net worth of $9.4 billion), founder and executive chairman of Chicago-based Ryan Specialty Holdings, a wholesale brokerage and specialty insurance firm.
- Ranked No. 210 — Ty Warner, 82 years old (net worth of $8.2 billion), creator of Beanie Babies, the plush toy fad of the 1990s.
- Ranked No. 224— Elizabeth Uihlein, 81 years old (net worth of $7.6 billion), president of Uline, one of North America's biggest distributors of shipping, packaging and industrial supplies.
- Ranked No. 224— Richard Uihlein, 81 years old (net worth of $7.6 billion), CEO of Uline, one of North America's biggest distributors of shipping, packaging, and industrial supplies.
- Ranked No. 232 — Thomas Pritzker, 76 years old (net worth of $7.5 billion), one of 13 billionaire heirs in the Pritzker clan behind hotel giant Hyatt
- Ranked No. 235 — Mark Walter, 66 years old (net worth of $7.3 billion), CEO of investment firm Guggenheim Partners, which has more than $300 billion in assets under management.
- Ranked No. 261— Eric Lefkofsky, 57 years old (net worth of $6.5 billion), made his fortune from the daily deals site Groupon, which he founded in 2008 with Andrew Mason and longtime business partner Brad Keywell.
- Ranked No. 264— Justin Ishbia, 48 years old (net worth of $6.4 billion), founder and managing partner of Shore Capital Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm with over $17 billion in assets under management.
- Ranked No. 277— Joseph Grendys, 64 years old (net worth of $6.1 billion), runs Koch Foods, a poultry processor that slaughters, ships and sells chicken under its own brands and through private label products.
- Ranked No. 293 — Penny Pritzker, 67 years old (net worth of $5.8 billion), investor and one of 11 billionaire heirs to the Pritzker fortune that stems from Hyatt hotels.
- Ranked No. 311— Andy Mills, 65 years old (net worth of $5.5 billion), director and former president of Illinois-based medical supplies giant Medline, which his father and uncle founded in 1966.
- Ranked No. 315— Larry Gies, 60 years old (net worth of $5.4 billion), founder and CEO of Chicago-based Madison Industries, a private equity firm he has built through dozens of acquisitions and rollups across the industrial sector.
- Ranked No. 318 — Joe Mansueto, 70 years old (net worth of $5.3 billion), started independent investment research firm Morningstar in 1984 with $80,000 in savings.
- Ranked No. 343 — Byron Trott, 67 years old (net worth of $5 billion), chairman and co-CEO of merchant bank BDT & MSD Partners.
- Ranked No. 367 — Wendy Abrams, 61 years old (net worth of $4.7 billion), shareholder of Illinois-based medical supplies giant Medline, which her father Jon Mills and uncle Jim Mills founded in 1966.
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
- Elon Musk, 55, $908 billion (SpaceX and Tesla)
- Jeff Bezos, 62, $378 billion (Amazon)
- Larry Page, 53, $278 billion (Google)
- Michael Dell, 61, $263 billion (Dell Technologies)
- Sergey Brin, 53, $256 billion (Google)
- Mark Zuckerberg, 42, $212 billion (Facebook)
- Larry Ellison, 82, $204 billion (Oracle)
- Jensen Huang, 63, $199 billion (semiconductors)
- Steve Ballmer, 70, $156 billion (Microsoft)
- Warren Buffett, 96, $144 billion (Berkshire Hathaway)