6 Minnesota Billionaires Make Forbes’ 2018 List

TWIN CITIES, MN — Jeff Bezos is at the top of Forbes’ billionaires list for 2018, dethroning fellow Seattle-area billionaire Bill Gates, who has lost the top spot for only the sixth time since 1995. Among the elite club of billionaires on the 32nd annual list, six of them have Minnesota ties.

The 2018 list has 2,208 members from 72 countries. With 585 Americans on the list, the United States leads the way with the most number of billionaires in the world, followed by China with 373 billionaires. The U.S. also had 18 newcomers featured on the 2018 list.

According to Forbes, Bezos is the first centi-billionaire at the top of the list, meaning he has a fortune of over a $100 billion. Forbes explains just how much wealth these billionaires have, being worth a combined $9.1 trillion. The top 20 people on the list alone are worth $1.2 trillion, 13 percent of the total fortune of all billionaires worldwide.

Here are the Minnesota billionaires who made the Forbes list for 2018:

1. (No. 289 overall) Whitney MacMillan, 88, $6 Billion — Cargill

• MacMillan's great-grandfather W.W. Cargill founded the business as a grain warehouse in 1865.

2. (No. 924 overall) Glen Taylor, 76, $2.6 Billion — Taylor Corp., Minnesota Timberwolves, Minnesota Lynx, United FC

• Taylor bought a wedding service for $2 million in 1975 and turned it a printing firm — Taylor — now with $2.2 billion in sales.

3. (No. 1103 overall) Stanley Hubbard, 84, $2.2 Billion — Hubbard Broadcasting

• Hubbard Broadcasting, which owns 13 TV stations and 41 radio stations across the nation
• U Of M Renames Journalism School For Hubbard Family

4. (No. 1477 overall) William F. Austin, 76, $1.6 Billion — Starkey Hearing Technologies

• Austin turned a hearing-aid repair shop into one of the world's largest hearing aids companies, Starkey Hearing Technologies.
• He opened his first shop in 1967 in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.

Tied for fifth:

• (No. 1756 overall) Martha MacMillan, 66 $1.3 Billion — Cargill
• (No. 1756 overall) John MacMillan, 68, $1.3 Billion — Cargill

Martha and John MacMillan are two of the 14 billionaire heirs to Cargill, the world's biggest agriculture business and the largest private company in the U.S.

The top 10 billionaires on the list are:

• Jeff Bezos, 54, worth $112 billion
• Bill Gates, 62, worth $90 billion
• Warren Buffett, 87, worth $84 billion
• Bernard Arnault, 69, worth $72 billion
• Mark Zuckerberg, 33, worth $71 billion
• Amancio Ortega, 81, worth $70 billion
• Carlos Slim Helu, 78, worth $67.1 billion
• Charles Koch, 82, worth $60 billion
• David Koch, 77, worth $60 billion
• Larry Ellison, 73, worth $58.5 billion

The Forbes billionaires list provides a look at wealth using stock prices and exchange rates from Feb. 9, 2018. Forbes values assets like private companies, art, real estate and more. Read more about Forbes methodology here.

See the full list of billionaires here.

Photo: Head coach Cheryl Reeve of the Minnesota Lynx pours champagne on owner Glen Taylor after winning against the Los Angeles Sparks in Game Five of the WNBA Finals on October 4, 2017 at Williams in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Lynx defeated the Sparks 85-76 to win the championship. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)