The established annual list of "Forbes" magazine with the 400 wealthiest people in the United States has a robust Greek representation again this year, at the top of which is Elon Musk with his fortune amounting to $251 billion.
According to Forbes data, the wealthiest person of Greek origin in the US this year is Tom Gores, a businessman who, through his private equity company, Platinum Equity, has invested in more than 40 businesses, with total assets of $47 billion.
Next in the ranking is 80-year-old Jim Davis, who has a fortune of $5.1 billion and is in 215th place on the list. The businessman, born in the USA to Greek parents, bought a small shoe company in Boston in 1972 and turned it into an industry giant.
Also, 75-year-old John Catsimatidis, otherwise known as the "king of supermarkets" of New York, has a fortune of $4.3 billion and is in the 267th position on the list.
In the 366th place is George Argyros, with a fortune of $3.1 billion from real estate and other investments.
In contrast, in the 379th place of the list, with a wealth of $3 billion, is the Greek-Italian John Paul DeJoria, founder of the tequila company Patron Spirits Co. but also of the hair care product company John Paul Mitchell Systems.
Finally, in 395th place, with a fortune of $2.9 billion, is 77-year-old Dean Metropoulos, who immigrated to the USA with his family at ten and settled in Massachusetts. Today, he is known for acquiring outdated brands, mainly from the food sector, and revive them.
The ten richest
There are no significant changes in the first ten positions of the relevant list compared to last year. As mentioned above, first is Elon Musk with a fortune of $251 billion, and second is Jeff Bezos with $161 billion.
Larry Ellison of Oracle is in third place, with $158 billion, followed by Warren Buffett, with $121 billion.
Immediately below, in 5th place, is Larry Page with a fortune of $114 billion; in 6th place is Bill Gates, with $111 billion.
Just one billion "poorer" is Sergey Brin of Google, who, with $110 billion, is in 7th place. In 8th place is Mark Zuckerberg, with $106 billion, and in 9th place is Steve Ballmer, with an estimated fortune of $101 billion.
The top ten is completed by Michael Bloomberg, whose worth is estimated to be just under $100 billion and, precisely, at $96.3 billion.
Trump is off the list
Out of the "Forbes" 400 list of the wealthiest people in the USA is Donald Trump for the second time in three years. "Donald Trump is no longer rich enough for the country's most exclusive club,” Forbes said.
He first fell off the Forbes list in 1990 due to the problems facing his real estate empire. He was also left off the list in 2021, in the wake of his chaotic presidency and amid the coronavirus pandemic and returned to the list in 2022.
According to Forbes, the $600 million drop in his fortune is due to the limited reach of the social networking platform he created after he was banned from Twitter and Facebook for his alleged role in the Capitol invasion and the decline in office values.
Forbes said Trump’s office buildings in San Francisco and New York, which are down by millions of dollars, also played a role in the drop of his fortune.
The ranking comes on the heels of the start of Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York, where he faces a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) over more than a decade of alleged fraud.
On the first day of the trial Monday, prosecutors showed Michael Cohen, Trump’s attorney and fixer, previously revealed in a deposition that he and former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg were assigned with inflating the former president’s assets to “obtain the number that Mr. Trump wanted.”
Cohen provided an example to prosecutors in which Trump might want to be “higher on the Forbes list,” so he would suggest that, for instance, his $6 billion net worth should actually be $8 billion.
When James announced the lawsuit against Trump last September, she pointed to Cohen’s 2019 testimony before Congress, in which he claimed Trump significantly overstated his wealth before he took office.
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