The Forbes 400 Richest People in America list for this has finally been released last Monday, September 29, and it seems the rich just keep getting richer.
Dominated by Microsoft's Bill Gates for 21 years in a row with a net worth of $81 billion, the top ten list included familiar faces. Warren Buffett, chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway and is a close friend of Gates, placed at the number 2 spot with a net worth of $67 billion. Larry Ellison, co-founder and chairman of enterprise software company Oracle Corporation, is at third with $50 billion.
Others are on the list include Charles Koch (#4) with a net worth of $42 billion, David Koch (#5) also at $42 billion, Christy Walton and family (#6) at $38 billion, Jim Walton (#7) at $36 billion, Michael Bloomberg (#8) at $35 billion, Alice Walton (#9) at $34.9 billion, and S. Robson Walton (#10) with a net worth of $34.8 billion.
The combined wealth of Forbes 2014 list is $2.29 trillion, the highest ever and a feat from 2013's $2.02 trillion, a report from Huffington Post noted. An astonishing $5.7 billion is the average net worth of a Forbes 400 member. According to MSN, the cost of entry to the list this year is $1.55 billion, the highest since 1982 when Forbes started tracking American wealth. Only 36 people from 2013's list has lower net worths this year. Twenty seven people fell from the list, and 6 people died, including Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcolm Glazer.
Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and CEO of popular social networking site Facebook, ranks at the 11th spot, earning the title of the highest dollar gainer on the list. Due to the sharp increase of the social network's shares, his fortune rose to $34 billion, up $15 billion from last year. In percentage terms, however, MSN states that Nicholas Woodman is the biggest gainer. The founder of wearable video camera company GoPro has a 200 percent increase in his net worth since 2013, reaching $3.9 billion.
The Forbes 400 list features 27 newcomers, including Elizabeth Holmes (#110), a 30-year old self-made billionaire and the youngest woman on the list. She founded Theranos, a blood testing company, which she owns 50 percent of.
Forbes announced on their website that for the first time ever, it has assigned a "self-made score" to each member of the list in order to better distinguish how far some members list have advanced to make it into the ranks. This measurement resulted to an enormous shift from inherited wealth to self-made wealth. Twenty years ago, more than half of the members of the list acquired their wealth from inheritance. For this year, more than two-thirds are self-made.