Almost a quarter of all the wealth on The Forbes 400 is held by residents of one state. Two others tie for second for the first time ever.
By Monica Hunter-Hart, Forbes Staff
California is a symbol of wealth, famous for the luxuries of Hollywood and the riches of Silicon Valley. So it’s perhaps no surprise that the world’s fifth-largest economy is home to more of the 400 wealthiest people in the U.S. than any other state by far—and has been for 34 years, since overtaking New York in 1991.
The Golden State is home to 83 members of this year’s Forbes 400 list, four fewer than last year and nine fewer than a decade ago, but the state is still home to more than one out of five 400 members. As a group, these Californians are worth around triple the $489 billion the state’s 92 members were worth a decade ago. But it’s not the only hub for the three-comma club. Ranking behind California are New York and Florida, with 54 list members each, followed by Texas, with 43. Those four states are the most populous in the country, holding a third of all Americans—but nearly 60% of the richest ones. The combined fortune of their 234 billionaires totals $3.3 trillion.
California’s days at the top may be numbered. Florida’s rise continues; the Sunshine State has eight more Forbes 400 members this year—enough to tie the Empire State for the first time. Some of the recent gains are due to folks leaving their higher-tax hometowns for Florida’s lower rates, like former Seattle resident Jeff Bezos and onetime Chicagoan Ken Griffin. Five New Yorkers have moved to Florida in the past decade. Those transplants include the state’s most famous resident, Donald Trump, who returns to the 400 list this year thanks to Trump Media & Technology Group, the social media company he took public in March. New York, meanwhile, has eight fewer 400 members than last year as the state’s richest couldn’t keep up. Among the drop-offs: Wesley Edens and Richard LeFrak.
A handful of states have only one Forbes 400 member, including Maine (Susan Alfond), Oregon (Phil Knight) and Kentucky (Tamara Gustavson). Ten states aren’t represented at all on the 400, including Alabama, Minnesota and Vermont. It was harder than ever to make the list this year due to a record-high cutoff of $3.3 billion, up from last year’s $2.9 billion and eons away from the median American family’s net worth of $192,900, per the U.S. Federal Reserve. That was enough to bump Mississippi off the map as its richest residents, James and Thomas Duff, though richer than last year, barely missed the cut with net worths of roughly $3.25 billion each.
Here are the top 10 states that are home to the most members of The Forbes 400.
Net worths are as of September 1, 2024
9 (tie). Arizona
Forbes 400 members: 9 (+2 from 2023) | Richest resident: Ernest Garcia II ($13 billion)
Ernest Garcia II, the largest shareholder of online used car sales platform Carvana and Arizona’s richest resident, wasn’t born in the Grand Canyon State, but his ties there stretch back decades. He attended the University of Arizona and developed real estate in Phoenix in the 1980s (a job that later brought him a criminal fraud conviction, thanks to his small role in the scandal surrounding the collapse of one of his lenders, Lincoln Savings & Loan). Other prominent Arizona listees include U-Haul heir Mark Shoen ($5.2 billion) and Arturo Moreno ($5 billion), who owns the L.A. Angels baseball team in neighboring California.
9 (tie). Massachusetts
Forbes 400 members: 9 (+2 ) | Richest resident: Abigail Johnson ($31.3 billion)
Fidelity Investments, the Boston-based mutual fund behemoth, is responsible for three members of The Forbes 400: CEO Abigail Johnson, the state’s wealthiest resident and America’s sixth-richest woman, and her siblings Edward and Elizabeth Johnson. Their family frequently donates to Boston-area charities and to Harvard, where Johnson got an MBA. Other prominent Bay State listees include telecom billionaire and Massachusetts philanthropist Robert Hale Jr. ($5.8 billion) and Robert Kraft ($11.8 billion), who found fortune in paper and packaging, and fame as the owner of the NFL’s New England Patriots.
7 (tie). Georgia
Forbes 400 members: 10 (no change) | Richest residents: Dan Cathy, Bubba Cathy and Trudy Cathy White ($10.6 billion each)
S. Truett Cathy (d. 2014) founded Chick-fil-A in an Atlanta area mall in 1967; it’s now spread to 48 states and his three children are Georgia’s richest residents. The Peach State is also home to Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank ($8.9 billion), private equity mogul and 400 newcomer Neal Aronson ($4.1 billion) and two more notable heirs: Gary Rollins ($6.8 billion), who chairs the pest control company his family founded in 1948, Rollins, Inc.; and Jim Kennedy ($6.6 billion), who chairs the media and automotive conglomerate his grandfather founded in 1898, Cox Enterprises.
7 (tie). Nevada
Forbes 400 members: 10 (+2) | Richest resident: Miriam Adelson ($29.8 billion)
The Silver State’s highest roller hails, fittingly, from the Las Vegas Strip: Miriam Adelson, whose fortune comes from the Las Vegas Sands casino company that her late husband founded in 1988. Two other Nevada listees who hail from the gaming industry are brothers Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, the UFC cofounders who also inherited their father’s casino business Red Rock Resorts in 1993 and took it public in 2016. The state also boasts fortunes in sectors like aerospace-defense (Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Eren and Fatih Ozmen, $4 billion and $3.8 billion, respectively) and fast food (Panda Express’ Andrew and Peggy Cherng, $3.7 billion each).
6. Pennsylvania
Forbes 400 members: 12 (+2) | Richest resident: Jeff Yass ($49.6 billion)
The richest Pennsylvanians are together worth $126 billion, roughly equal to the Keystone State’s total annual government spending. Wealthiest resident Jeff Yass cofounded trading firm Susquehanna International Group, headquartered on the Main Line. It owns an estimated 15% of TikTok parent company ByteDance. Yass is a Republican megadonor who often opens his wallet for state and local elections, everything from county judicial races to Philly’s city council election. His Susquehanna cofounder Arthur Dantchik ($12.3 billion) is also a Pennsylvania resident on The Forbes 400 list, as is Victoria Mars ($11.9 billion), heir to the Mars candy and pet food empire, and Jeffrey Lurie ($5.3 billion), owner of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles.
5. Illinois
Forbes 400 members: 16 (+3) | Richest resident: Lukas Walton ($33.9 billion)
Chicago is home to the youngest member of The Forbes 400, Lukas Walton, who is one of the eight grandchildren of Walmart cofounder Sam Walton. Aged 38, he’s one of two listees under 40 (the other being New York-based venture capitalist Josh Kushner). Several list members from the Hyatt hotel brand’s Pritzker family are also breezing around the Windy City, including J.B. Pritzker ($3.7 billion), the state’s billionaire governor. Others in Illinois made their riches through industries like meat processing (Steve Lavin, $5.4 billion, and Joseph Grendys, $4.2 billion) and finance (Byron Trott, $3.7 billion, and Mark Walter, $6 billion).
4. Texas
Forbes 400 members: 43 (-2) | Richest resident: Elon Musk ($244 billion)
Musk—the richest person in the U.S. for the third year in a row—is all-in on the Lone Star State, announcing this year that he’s moving his companies SpaceX and X there from California. Texas is increasingly seen as a swing state, but Musk made his own political allegiances clear in July when he endorsed Donald Trump for president in a post on X. Texas produces more oil and natural gas than any other state, so perhaps unsurprisingly, nearly a third of its listees made their fortunes in energy, including Randa Duncan Williams ($8.6 billion; Enterprise Products Partners) and Kelcy Warren ($6.7 billion; Energy Transfer).
2 (tie). Florida
Forbes 400 members: 54 (+8) | Richest resident: Jeff Bezos ($197 billion)
The Sunshine State keeps attracting big wealth. When Bezos recently relocated from Washington state, he spent $234 million on three homes on Indian Creek, the gated man-made island in Miami Beach dubbed the “Billionaire Bunker.” Nearly 30% of Florida’s listees made their fortunes in finance and investments, including the second-richest Floridian, Ken Griffin ($43 billion), who made headlines in 2022 for moving his family and the headquarters of his hedge fund Citadel there from Chicago. The second-most common industry that enriched the wealthiest Floridians is food and beverage, from which hails Subway’s Elisabeth DeLuca ($8.6 billion) and LaCroix sparkling water’s Nick Caporella ($4.1 billion).
2 (tie). New York
Forbes 400 members: 54 (-8) | Richest resident: Michael Bloomberg ($105 billion)
The world’s financial capital is still a finance billionaire hub. Nearly two-thirds of the Empire State’s listees made their fortunes in the sector, including Michael Bloomberg, the former NYC mayor who started his career on Wall Street in 1966 at the investment bank Salomon Brothers, then made billions through financial information and media company Bloomberg LP. The state’s second-richest resident, Julia Koch ($74.2 billion), is originally from Iowa and owes her fortune to Kansas-based conglomerate Koch, Inc., but has lived in the Big Apple for four decades. In June, she and her children bought a 15% stake in the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and WNBA’s New York Liberty for nearly $700 million. Other notable New Yorkers on The Forbes 400 include George Soros ($7.2 billion), Ralph Lauren ($9.4 billion) and Bill Ackman ($9.1 billion).
1. California
Forbes 400 members: 83 (-4) | Richest resident: Mark Zuckerberg ($181 billion)
Hollywood and Silicon Valley have made many Californians rich, but none more than Mark Zuckerberg, who officially resides in Palo Alto, though these days spends plenty of time at his 1,450-acre compound in Kauai, Hawaii. Nearly half of California’s Forbes 400 wealth stems from tech moguls like Zuckerberg, including Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin ($136 billion and $130 billion, respectively), Nvidia’s Jensen Huang ($104 billion) and Broadcom’s Henry Samueli ($16.9 billion). But entertainment moguls like David Geffen ($8.5 billion) and Steven Spielberg ($5.3 billion) also call the Golden State home, as do real estate barons such as Donald Bren ($18.9 billion) and Edward Roski Jr ($7.8 billion), and private equity moguls like KKR cofounder George Roberts ($15.5 billion) and Jim Coulter ($4.9 billion).
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