Forbes Daily Briefing

Money is the only thing that can buy you a spot on The Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans—but it takes a lot of it. With markets trading near all-time highs, the minimum net worth to rank among the top 400 people in the U.S. has skyrocketed to $4.4 billion, $600 million more than a year ago. That lofty cutoff has left a record 590 American billionaires too poor to make the list, up from 500 in 2025.

Several famous faces just aren’t rich enough, including celebrities Oprah Winfrey (estimated net worth, $3.4 billion—a full billion short of making the list), pop star Taylor Swift ($2 billion) and hip hop mogul Dr. Dre ($1 billion). Plenty of high-profile business names can’t cut it either, including former eBay and Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman ($4.2 billion), OpenAI CEO Sam Altman ($3.3 billion) and former Apple CEO Tim Cook ($3 billion)

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kirkogunrinde/2026/09/17/a-record-590-us-billionaires-arent-rich-enough-to-make-the-forbes-400-list/
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Faith is a remarkable asset. A year ago, Donald Trump’s followers had so much of it that the president could spin billions out of thin air.

First came Trump Media, which investors valued it at $5 billion even as net losses neared $700 million. Then came World Liberty Financial, which sold more than $1 billion of tokens in 2025 on vague promises to “democratize finance.” Finally, there was the memecoin, which explicitly warned buyers that it was not intended to be an investment but nonetheless generated enough hype to leave Trump with a pile of tokens conservatively worth $710 million.

The bonanza pushed the president’s fortune to $7.3 billion by September 2025, the highest figure to ever appear next to Trump’s name since he joined the inaugural Forbes 400 list 44 years ago.
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Just how difficult is it to make the Forbes 400 list of America’s richest people these days? Consider this: There are now a record 590 American billionaires who are simply not rich enough.

With the AI and data center boom in full swing and the U.S. stock market near an all-time high, it now takes a record $4.4 billion to rank among the nation’s 400 wealthiest people. That’s $600 million more than last year and $2.7 billion more than a decade ago. In all, this year’s Forbes 400 is richer than ever, worth a combined $8 trillion, up from $6.6 trillion in 2025.

The massive gains start at the top of the list. Elon Musk was already the richest American of all-time last year, with a fortune of $428 billion. Since then, he has more than doubled his wealth over the past 12 months, getting $480 billion richer after taking his rocket maker SpaceX public in the biggest IPO in history in June (and briefly becoming the planet’s first-ever trillionaire). Musk is now worth an estimated $908 billion—a staggering $530 billion more than the list’s No. 2, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who himself is $137 billion wealthier than a year ago (and ranks two spots higher), thanks to a rise in the ecommerce giant’s stock and a much higher valuation of his own rocket firm, Blue Origin. The net worth difference between Musk and Bezos now spans more than three and a half Warren Buffetts, or the bottom 105 billionaires on this year’s Forbes 400 combined.
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“Financially, what will take me to $1B?” Greg Brockman wrote in his journal in August 2017. Back then, OpenAI was still a nonprofit, and its cofounders—including Brockman, Sam Altman and Elon Musk—were locked in a fight over whether to launch a for-profit arm, and whether Musk would control it. “I think now is a crazy shot to be the one in charge and to step up to the challenge,” Brockman wrote. “We truly have a chance to make this happen.”

Nine years later, Brockman's private diary became the most damaging evidence used by Musk in a legal battle over his claim that OpenAI’s president Brockman and CEO Altman had convinced him to bankroll their nonprofit, then betrayed him by converting it into a for-profit business. Taking the stand in the Oakland, California, courtroom in May, Brockman said his journal entry was about wanting the “blood, sweat and tears” he’s poured into OpenAI to be worth something.

By Alicia Park,

Reporter.
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Macklemore claimed Monday that billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft pioneered his removal from Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour after the rapper made “free Palestine” remarks at two shows in New York this month.
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