Virginia's Private Equity Billionaires Join Heirs To Family Fortunes On The Forbes 400

VIRGINIA — America’s billionaires are richer than they’ve ever been, Forbes said with Tuesday’s release of The Forbes 400, its annual list of the 400 richest U.S. billionaires. Five people from Virginia made the cut.

In Virginia, The Forbes 400 billionaires are:

• Jacqueline Mars, 81, daughter of Forrest Mars, Sr., and granddaughter of Frank C. Mars, founders of candy company Mars Inc., $31.8 billion.
• Pamela Mars, 61, heir to the Mars Inc. fortune, $8 billion
• Daniel D'Aniello, 75, co-founder and non-executive chairman emeritus of the board of The Carlyle Group, $4.6 billion
• William Conway Jr., 72, co-founder and non-executive co-chairman of the board of The Carlyle Group, $4 billion
• Winifred J. Marquart, 62, heir to family-owned SC Johnson, the privately held cleaning products company, $3.6 billion

Jeff Bezos, the founder of the e-commerce giant Amazon, again topped The Forbes 400 list. His net worth was $189.8 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time wealth tracker. Bezos has topped the list for four consecutive years.

Rounding out the top five and the size of their fortunes at the end of trading Monday are Tesla founder Elon Musk ($190.5 billion), Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ($134.5 billion), Microsoft founder Bill Gates ($134 billion) and Google executive Larry Page ($123 billion).

Forbes said that though the pandemic made 2020 a terrible year for many, the wealthiest Americans continued to enjoy good economic times. Collectively, the personal fortunes of the 400 richest billionaires increased 40 percent over the past year to $4.5 trillion, up from $3.2 trillion the year prior.

Nearly all are richer than they were a year ago, Forbes said, and the top 20 are worth $1.8 trillion.

In Virginia, heirs to the Mars. Inc. fortune led the way, followed by the co-founders of the private equity firm Carlyle Group, the same firm where Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, made his fortune.

Forbes calculated the net worth of those on the list using stock prices at Wall Street’s closing bell on Sept. 3, which was close to a record high close for U.S. stock indices such as the S&P 500.

Among the 44 people who fell off the list was former President Donald Trump, who had been among the 400 richest Americans for 25 years. He continues to be a billionaire. He is as wealthy as he was a year ago, when he ranked 339, but he’s lost $600 million since the start of the pandemic, Forbes noted. Big-city properties, which make up the bulk of the real estate mogul’s holdings, have languished during the pandemic.

Newcomers to The Forbes 400 include cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, who at 29 is the youngest person on the list. He’s worth $22.5 billion, ranks 32nd and is among seven cryptocurrency entrepreneurs on the list.

There are 56 women on the list, the same number as a year ago. Oprah Winfrey and Gap co-founder Doris Fisher fell off the list, but new to the list are Melinda French Gates, following her divorce from Bill Gates; and Miriam Adelson, heir to her late husband Sheldon Adelson’s stake in the Las Vegas Sands casino empire.

Alice Walton remains the richest woman in America for the seventh year. The Walmart heir is worth $67.9 billion.

In all, 282 people on the list are self-made billionaires.