Recently, Forbes published a top 400 of this year's richest Americans. Like previous years, the familiar names triumphed; Elon Musk took the first spot on the list with a wealth of €222.5 billion. Compared to last year, however, 15 young billionaires disappeared from the list. Due to chaos in the crypto world and much turmoil in tech, they lost some of their wealth. Still, ten young billionaires captured a spot in the top 400. Who are they and what did they amass their fortunes with?
Mark Zuckerberg
Meta's co-founder and CEO lost €77.6 billion compared to last year, meaning he lost more than half of his fortune. Meta's shares fell about 60% year-on-year, partly due to a decline in the number of users of the social platform, but also due to its expansion into the Metaverse. Mark Zuckerberg, with assets of €59.5 billion, ranks eleven in the top 400.
Lukas Walton
Lukas is the grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton and inherited a large fortune after his father died in a plane crash in 2005. Lukas chose not to join the family business. Instead, the 36-year-old billionaire is committed to charity with his platform Builders Vision. Walton ranks 29th with assets of €21 billion.
Sam Bankman-Fried
Bankman-Fried is one of the richest people in crypto, thanks to his trading platform FTX and Alameda Research. Sam is the son of two law professors, studied physics, but started trading in crypto in late 2017. In 2019, the young entrepreneur launched his own platform FTX, already valued at €18.6 billion by 2021. The 30-year-old Bankman-Fried ranks 41 on the Forbes list with assets of €17.8 billion. He says he will eventually donate most of this to charities based on the philosophy of "earning to give.
Dustin Moskovitz
Dustin, 38, co-founded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin and Chris Hughes. After two years of studying economics at Harvard, he dropped out to work full-time for the social platform and became vice president. In October 2008, Moskovitz left the company. Most of Moskovitz's wealth comes from his shares in Facebook (Meta Platforms) and his own company Asana. The 30-year-old entrepreneur ranks 83 with €8.4 billion.
Following the success of my AMA over the weekend, I was inspired to do a *live* Asana investor AMA @ Giants Stadium yesterday with @anneraimondi, @LouSeal01, Yeti, and @MLB CIO Neil Boland. Thanks so much to MLB and Neil for hosting - we had a great time! pic.twitter.com/ASaX3HkDtk
- Dustin Moskovitz (@moskov) October 12, 2022
Nathan Blecharczyk
Blecharczyk is the only one of Airbnb's three co-founders who, at 39, is still under 40. He currently holds the role of Chief Strategy Officer at the company. And even though Airbnb's shares fell 30%, the entrepreneur is ranked 93 with €8 billion.
Joe, your contributions will never be forgotten AND they are far from over 🙂 I look forward to continuing our Sunday founder meetings. https://t.co/fSt4y6HeVg pic.twitter.com/WruQSJi7pR
- Nathan Blecharczyk (@nathanblec) July 21, 2022