Three Greek-Americans - Jim Davis, Tom Gores, and John Catsimatidis – have been included on the Forbes’ annual list of the 400 richest Americans.
Released on October 5, Davis is placed 134th on the list. A descendant of Greek immigrants, Davis started his fortune by buying a small shoe store in 1972 which he turned into New Balance, now valued at $3.6 billion.
Gores is ranked 176th on the list with a fortune of $5.9 billion. A businessman and investor, Gores is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Platinum Equity, a private equity firm with headquarters in Beverly Hills, California. On June 1, 2011, Gores and Platinum Equity became the owners of the National Basketball Association's Detroit Pistons.
Catsimatidis is ranked 310th with a fortune of $3.7 billion. An American billionaire businessman and radio talk show host, Castimatidis is the owner, president, chairman, and CEO of Gristedes Foods, a grocery chain in Manhattan, and the Red Apple Group, a real estate and aviation company with about $2 billion in holdings in New York, Florida and Pennsylvania.
In total the fortunes of America's 400 richest people have risen 40 percent in the past year to $4.5 trillion, up from $3.2 trillion. In fact, as uncovered by Forbes, almost everyone is richer than a year ago.
The minimum net worth required to make the list this year was higher than ever at $2.9 billion, up from the cut-off of $2.1 billion over the previous three years.
This resulted in 51 billionaires being bumped from the Forbes 400 in 2021, including Oprah Winfrey and also Donald Trump, who fell off the list for the first time in 25 years.
Donald Trump fell off the #Forbes400 for the first time in 25 years https://t.co/rrKhTs9VEu pic.twitter.com/yzLTZ15OVL
— Forbes (@Forbes) October 8, 2021
Jeff Bezos once again topped the list as the richest man in America for the fourth consecutive year. The founder and president of Amazon is worth $201 billion, $22 billion more than last year, and is the first person ever on the Forbes 400 list to be worth $200 billion or more.
Second on the list is Elon Musk, who is worth $190.5 billion, almost three times what he was worth on the 2020 list, due to the huge increase in the share price of the electric car company Tesla.
Mark Zuckerberg placed in at third, thanks to the jump of 63% of Facebook shares since last year's list was released.
Bill Gates fell to fourth place on the list, the first time in 30 years that he was not in the top two. Gates and his wife Melinda announced their divorce after 27 years of marriage in May 2021. Shortly afterwards, he transferred to her approximately $5.7 billion worth of stock in companies such as Deere & Co and Canadian Railway. Melinda Gates therefore appears on the Forbes 400 for the first time this year at No. 158, with $6.3 billion.
Despite the cut-off for The Forbes 400 list being higher than it’s ever been, nearly four dozen billionaires debuted on the 2021 list of the country’s wealthiest people, with the newcomers collectively worth $253 billion
44 newcomers joined The Forbes 400 this year, which is twice as many people compared to last year, with nearly two-thirds of them making their fortunes in finance and tech.
So, you want to be a billionaire too?
Nearly half of the nation’s wealthiest majored in one of three subjects at college, and despite the fast growth of tech fortunes, computer science isn’t one of them.
65 billionaires on this year’s Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans majored in business as undergraduates, 55 majored in economics whilst 55 members majored in engineering.
Want to be a billionaire? These are the most popular majors of the richest Americans: https://t.co/Iea7ucAStu pic.twitter.com/1HaBQBlEvw
— Forbes (@Forbes) October 8, 2021
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