7 Long Islanders Make List Of Richest Americans

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is at the top of yet another list of billionaires, this time the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans. The list, released Wednesday, puts Bezos ahead of his Washington-area neighbor, Bill Gates, who had been at the top since 1994.

Bezos was also at the top of Forbes’ billionaires list, which was released in March. He dethroned Gates on that list as well.

The 400 richest Americans have a massive amount of wealth. According to Forbes, the minimum net worth needed to join the list in 2018 was $2.1 billion, the highest amount ever for admission. In all, Forbes says the net worth of the 400 was a record high of $2.9 trillion and half of that belongs to just the 45 richest people in the country.

Long Island is not without its share of billionaires. Of the 400 richest Americans on the list, 7 live on the Island. Here are the Long Island billionaires listed by overall ranking, including information from Forbes::

23: Jim Simons, net worth $20 billion (hedge funds) -- East Setauket
Simons retired from Renaissance Technologies Corp., a hedge fund firm he founded, in 2010, but still plays an active role there. A codebreaker during the Vietnam War, Simons founded Renaissance in 1982 and used computer modeling to find better liquid securities.

88: Katharine Rayner and Margaretta Taylor, net worth $6.2 billion (media, automotive) -- the Hamptons
Taylor, Rayner and their brother, James Cox Chambers, are the heirs to the Cox fortune. Their grandfather founded Cox Enterprises, an automotive and media conglomerate. The two sisters are not involved with the business, and mainly focus on philanthropy.

109: Charles Dolan and family, net worth $5.7 billion (cable television) -- Oyster Bay
Dolan is the former owner of Cablevision, which he sold last year for $17.7 billion. Dolan is still an influential figure locally, and owns stakes in the New York Knicks, the New York Rangers, Madison Square Garden and AMC Networks.

168: Julian Robertson, Jr., net worth $4.3 billion (hedge funds) -- Locust Valley
Robertson founded Tiger Management in 1980 and became one of the most successful hedge fund managers in the world. He built a sizeable fortune through deals overseas, and also runs a charity, the Tiger Foundation.

207: Ken Langone, net worth $3.7 billion (investments) -- Sands Point
Langone was an early investor in Home Depot and is considered a cofounder of the retail chain. He makes investments in tech and industrial companies.

259: Don Vultaggio, net worth $3.1 billion (AriZona Beverages) -- Port Washington
The co-founder of Arizona Beverages, Vultaggio made his fortune selling 99 cent cans of iced tea. He got his start selling beer and soda out of the back of a van in the neighborhoods of Brooklyn where no one else wanted to go. He launched Arizona in 1992, which now sells about 3 billion containers of product a year.

Some other notable points from Forbes’ reporting:

• 57 women were on the list
• Those with self-made fortunes vastly outnumber those with inherited wealth
• President Donald Trump dropped 11 spots on the list compared to 2017, coming in at No. 259; see the New York Times account of how Trump accumulated his wealth, which differs significantly from the president’s account.

Forbes’ takes a hard and thorough look at the wealth of those on the list to figure out just how much they’re worth. Reporters at Forbes conduct interviews, look over documents, assets and factor in debt in their calculations. (You can see a more detailed methodology here.)

The top 10 billionaires on the list are:

Jeff Bezos (Amazon)
Bill Gates (Microsoft)
Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway)
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
Larry Ellison (software)
Larry Page (Google)
Charles Koch (Koch Industries)
David Koch (Koch Industries)
Sergey Brin (Google)
Michael Bloomberg (Bloomberg LP)

>>>You can see the full list here.
>>>Click here to see Forbes’ full report on the list.

Photo: Shutterstock