With a net worth of $908 billion, Elon Musk again tops the Forbes 400, a ranking of the nation's wealthiest billionaires that includes Jacqueline Mars, the richest person in Virginia.
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.
"Elon Musk's trillionaire moment was short-lived, but the wealth controlled by the top 20 is massive," Forbes said.
Billionaires on the list from Virginia are:
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:
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