1 Billionaire From RI Makes New List Of World's Richest

Rhode Island billionaire Jonathan M. Nelson ranks 1,189th among the world’s richest billionaires in a new list released by Forbes on Tuesday.

Elon Musk, whose fortune has soared to an unprecedented $839 billion, remains at the top of the hierarchy of The Richest People in the World. Both wealth and membership in the exclusive club hit all-time highs in 2026, underscoring the intensifying concentration of global economic power among the ultra‑rich, Forbes said.

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Nelson, the only Rhode Island billionaire on the list, made his fortune as the executive chairman of Providence Equity Partners, the private equity firm he founded in 1989.

U.S. billionaires dominate the ranking, with 989 people on the list, followed by China (including Hong Kong) with 610, and India in third place with 229 billionaires. Overall, billionaires from 80 countries and territories made the list. Self‑made entrepreneurs account for about 67% of the roster, though a large share of wealth is still inherited.

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Behind Musk, whose fortune was fueled by gains in Tesla, SpaceX and associated tech ventures, are other U.S. tech magnates: Google co‑founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin occupy the second and third spots with estimated net worths of $257 billion and $237 billion, respectively, followed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($224 billion) and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg ($222 billion).

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A prominent theme in this year’s list is the explosive rise of wealth tied to artificial intelligence. At least 86 members of the so‑called “centibillionaire club” (those worth $100 billion or more) owe their fortunes in significant part to AI enterprises. Forty‑two of these individuals became billionaires for the first time in 2026, reflecting how rapid innovation and investment in AI are reshaping wealth creation globally.

The new cohort of billionaires includes a record 35 under-30 billionaires, including newcomers Surya Midha, Brendan Foody, and Adarsh Hiremath, the trio behind AI recruiting startup Mercor, based in San Francisco. The youngest self-made billionaires ever to make the list, they are each 22 years old, and worth $2.2 billion — or, as Forbes put it, “$100 million for every year they’ve been alive.”

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Women remain underrepresented on the billionaire list, accounting for only 14% of all billionaires — a slight increase from the previous year. Among them, Alice Walton remains the richest woman in the world, with an estimated net worth of $134 billion.

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