209,082 viewsMay 21, 2018, 09:45am
Meet The Richest Person In Every State 2018
(Design by Nick DeSantis, FORBES staff)
For the fourth year in a row, Forbes has scoured the country from sea to shining sea to find the richest person in every single state. The centimillionaires and billionaires we found have made (or inherited) fortunes in a sprawling range of industries -- from hotels to hedge funds to coal.
In all, Forbes located 53 captains of industry (three states had ties) with fortunes that add up to $832 billion, up from $747 billion last year and $682 billion the year before. The average fortune for this year's list stands at $16.6 billion, up from $14.4 billion in 2017.
The most popular way to make a fortune that is unrivaled by anyone else in your state is to go into finance and investing, where a full 10 people on our list have made a name for themselves. Fashion and retail comes next, with eight people on our list, followed by the food and beverage sector (five people) and the service industry (with another five people).
The surging price of Amazon stock has made Jeff Bezos the richest person in his adopted home state of Washington for the first time (as well as the wealthiest person in the world); his fortune skyrocketed from $83 billion last year to a current $132 billion. Amazon's stock roared 66% higher in the 12 months through mid-May as investors cheered the company's reshaping of the retail world, plus its ability to grab market share in places like the cloud, and post a stretch of profits, to boot. Bezos now easily outranks Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, who qualified as Washington's richest last year with a net worth of $88.9 billion.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Civic Nation BRANDVOICE
Women Can Have It All In 2019 By Doing More Of What We Love, Not Less
(Design by Nick DeSantis, FORBES staff)
Digital trading pioneer Thomas Peterffy also had a blockbuster year and solidified his position as the richest person in Florida. His fortune basically doubled to $25.7 billion thanks to a dizzying 104% rise in shares of his company, Interactive Brokers. That makes him the largest gainer, in terms of sheer dollars as well as percentage growth, compared to last year's list. He is now leaps and bounds ahead of fellow Florida resident and hedge fund manager David Tepper, who is the state's second-richest with a fortune of $11 billion.
California's wealthiest resident, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, managed to increase his fortune by $11.6 billion in the past year to a recent $74 billion. This is despite an outcry over the way his social media empire handles user data and its alleged role in spreading misinformation during the last presidential election. Zuckerberg remains the third-richest person in the nation.
Investors were not so kind to Charles Ergen, who lost his place as the richest person in Colorado as shares of Dish Network were beaten down by almost 50% in the 12 months through mid-May. His net worth was knocked down to $10 billion, a far cry from the $18.8 billion he clocked last year. Taking his place as the state's richest is Philip Anschutz, with a net worth of $12.7 billion, which stems from a bevy of endeavors including oil, railroads, real estate
and
entertainment.
In some states, there is little competition when it comes to wearing the crown of the state's richest person. Take Warren Buffett in Nebraska. The legendary investor is the fourth-wealthiest person on the entire planet with a net worth of $85 billion. The next-richest person in his beloved home state is his longtime friend Walter Scott Jr., whose fortune also comes from Berkshire Hathaway (namely, its utilities subsidiary), but is decidedly smaller at $4.2 billion.
Six of the 50 U.S. states lack a billionaire altogether. For more on the richest person in those states, see here.
Here is the full list:
Alabama
:
Jimmy Rane
, lumber, $950 million
Alaska: Leonard Hyde, Jonathan Rubini & families, real estate, $310 million each
Arizona: Mark Shoen, U-Haul, $3 billion
Arkansas: Jim Walton, Walmart, $40.3 billion
California: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, $74 billion
Colorado: Philip Anschutz, investments, $12.7 billion
Connecticut: Ray Dalio, hedge funds, $17.4 billion
Delaware: Robert Gore and Elizabeth Snyder, Gore-Tex, $750 million each
Florida: Thomas Peterffy, discount brokerage, $25.7 billion
Georgia: Jim Kennedy, media, $9 billion
Hawaii: Pierre Omidyar, eBay, $10.6 billion
Idaho: Frank VanderSloot, nutrition and wellness, $3.4 billion
Illinois: Ken Griffin, hedge funds, $9 billion
Indiana: Carl Cook, medical devices, $8.2 billion
Iowa: Harry Stine, agriculture, $3.2 billion
Kansas: Charles Koch, Koch Industries, $51.5 billion
Kentucky: B. Wayne Hughes, self storage, $2.7 billion
Louisiana: Gayle Benson, New Orleans Saints, $2.7 billion
Maine: Susan Alfond, shoes, $1.6 billion
Maryland: Ted Lerner & family, real estate, $5.1 billion
Massachusetts: Abigail Johnson, money management, $16.9 billion
Michigan: Daniel Gilbert, Quicken Loans, $6.3 billion
Minnesota: Glen Taylor, printing, $2.8 billion
Mississippi: James and Thomas Duff, diversified, $1.2 billion each
Missouri: Pauline MacMillan Keinath, Cargill, $7.2 billion
Montana: Dennis Washington, construction and mining, $5.9 billion
Nebraska: Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway, $85 billion
Nevada: Sheldon Adelson, casinos, $42.8 billion
New Hampshire: Andrea Reimann-Ciardelli, consumer goods, $1.1 billion
New Jersey: John Overdeck, hedge funds, $5.5 billion
New Mexico: Mack C. Chase, oil, $700 million
New York: David Koch, Koch Industries, $51.5 billion
North Carolina: James Goodnight, software, $9.9 billion
North Dakota: Gary Tharaldson, hotels, $900 million
Ohio: Les Wexner & family, retail, $5.4 billion
Oklahoma: Harold Hamm & family, oil and gas, $19.5 billion
Oregon: Phil Knight & family, Nike, $30.7 billion
Pennsylvania: Victoria Mars, candy and pet food, $6 billion
Rhode Island: Jonathan Nelson, private equity, $1.8 billion
South Carolina: Anita Zucker, chemicals, $2.5 billion
South Dakota: T. Denny Sanford, banking and credit cards, $2.5 billion
Tennessee: Thomas Frist Jr & family, hospitals, $9.7 billion
Texas: Alice Walton, Walmart, $40 billion
Utah: Gail Miller, Utah Jazz and car dealers, $1.4 billion
Vermont: John Abele, healthcare, $630 million
Virginia: Jacqueline Mars, candy and pet food, $23.8 billion
Washington: Jeff Bezos, Amazon, $132 billion
West Virginia: Jim Justice II, coal, $1.9 billion
Wisconsin: John Menard Jr, home improvement, $10.5 billion
Wyoming: John Mars, candy and pet food, $23.8 billion
--
For more coverage on the richest people in every state, check out:
How The Richest Person In Every State Got Rich
The Six U.S. States Without Billionaires: See Who’s The Richest In Each In 2018
How Two Brothers Became Billionaires — And The Richest People In Mississippi
--
Methodology
This is our fourth year compiling a list of the richest person in every state. Several of the members of this group also appear on the Forbes World’s Billionaires List, which is published in March, and The Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, which comes out in October. For the richest in state package, we update the net worths of the billionaires we are constantly tracking to make sure we have the latest figures. We then spend a significant amount of time hunting for the richest centi-millionaires in the states with no billionaires. Our estimates represent a snapshot of wealth as of May 11, 2018. The net worth of anyone in this group can change materially within days or weeks.
Editors
Kerry A. Dolan, Lauren Gensler and Luisa Kroll
Reporters
Angel Au-Yeung, Madeline Berg, Deniz Cam, Carter Coudriet, Lauren Gensler and Anis Muslimin. Additional reporting by Christopher Helman, Max Jedeur-Palmgren, Noah Kirsch, Joann Muller, Andrea Murphy, Samantha Sharf, Chloe Sorvino, Michela Tindera, Nathan Vardi and Jennifer Wang. Research by Susan Radlauer.
Lauren DebterForbes Staff
I am part of Forbes' wealth team, where I write about some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world.
