3 NJ Billionaires Make Forbes 400 List Of Super Rich

NEW JERSEY — For the first time since the Great Recession, the 400 richest Americans didn’t get wealthier this year, according to the 2022 Forbes 400, which includes three billionaires in New Jersey.

As a group, the net worth of super-rich Americans was down $500 billion, or 11 percent, to $4 trillion, Forbes said. Nonetheless, Forbes values New Jersey's wealthiest trio at a combined $20 billion, which would have totaled 3.6 percent of the state's 2021 Gross Domestic Product.

The Forbes list is based on stock prices from Sept. 2. In New Jersey, the wealthiest people are:

1. Rocco Commisso (ranked 93rd on the list), founder and CEO of cable company Mediacom. Commisso's real-time net worth Thursday was $7.7 billion, down from $8.4 billion last year.
2. John Overdeck (126th), co-founder of Two Sigma, a New York City-based hedge fund. Overdeck's net worth jumped from $6.5 billion in 2021 to $6.8 billion this year.
3. Peter Kellogg (317th), who sold brokerage house Spear, Leeds & Kellogg to Goldman Sachs for $6.5 billion in cash and stock in 2000. Kellogg's net worth Thursday was $3.5 billion, down from $3.8 billion last year.

"The rich don’t always get richer," said 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.

During the pandemic, workers around the world lost $3.7 trillion in earnings as of January 2021, according to the International Labour Organization. The world's billionaires made $3.9 trillion during that span, according to Oxfam International.

"Billionaires have had a terrific pandemic," said Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher. "Central banks pumped trillions of dollars into financial markets to save the economy, yet much of that has ended up lining the pockets of billionaires riding a stock market boom."

All three New Jersey billionaires got richer during the pandemic. Since 2019, Commisso's net worth increased $2.3 billion (41.8 percent), Overdeck's by $700 million (11.5 percent) and Kellogg's by $100 million (2.9 percent).

Elon Musk, who co-founded 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.

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

Facebook founder and Meta Platforms cofounder Mark Zuckerberg fell out of the top 10, coming in at No. 11, down from No. 3 last year. 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.