Alabama: Jimmy Rane ($950 million)Known as “Yella Fella,” the cowboy alter-ego he plays in TV ads, Rane is the founder of the Great Southern Wood Preserving lumber company. He got the idea for his western-themed commercials from Frank Perdue’s humorous poultry ads.Rane spends much of his wealth revitalising his hometown of Abbeville, where his family has been for more than 200 years.
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Being rich still has its perks: You can buy a sports teams or chart a private shuttle to outer space. The people on Forbes’ new list of the richest person in every state have a combined personal wealth of $832 billion, or more than the gross national product of Switzerland and Portugal combined.
Forbes tabulated the net worth of these million and billionaires based on reported information of their assets and their company’s public financial statements. Their average fortune is a cool $16.6 billion, a significant bump from $14.4 billion in 2017. (What bad economy?)
Most of them made their mint in finance and investing, followed by retail and fashion. The food and beverage sector is also a good path to becoming a centimillionaire or billionaire—though nothing beats being born rich. Two recognizable family names pop up several times: The Mars, heirs to the Mars candy-bar empire, and the Waltons, the family that owns Walmart.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest person on the list —and every list, for that matter. Based in Washington State, Bezos started Amazon as an online bookstore in his garage in 1994. Today it's a one-stop-shop with revenues topping $177 billion in 2017. (Bezos also owns Whole Foods and the Washington Post.) Most of the other fat cats here are white men like Bezos—though Maine’s Susan Alfond ($1.6 billion) and Texas’s Alice Walton ($40 billion) made the cut.
There’s several prominent immigrants, too— including Hungarian Thomas Peterffy, the richest man in Florida; German-born Andrea Reimann-Ciardelli of New Hampshire; and Hawaii’s Pierre Omidyar, who emigrated from France with his Iranian parents when he was a child.
Wealth comes and goes, of course: These folks were the richest in their state as of May 11, 2018. Click through and meet them.
Rhode Island: Jonathan Nelson ($1.8 billion)Nelson is the founder of Providence Equity Partners, a private equity firm started in 1989. Today, the firm manages $42 billion and has invested in more than 180 companies. He attended Brown University and is now a major investor in the school.Nelson signed on to Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge, committing to donate the majority of his wealth to charity during his lifetime.
ReutersNevada: Sheldon Adelson ($37.2 billion)
Adelson, 85, is the CEO of Las Vegas Sands, the largest casino company in the United States. A prominent supporter of Republican candidates, he donated $5 million to Donald Trump's inaugural committee, the largest in U.S. history for an inaugural celebration.
Adelson also owns the Israel Hayom and Las Vegas Review-Journal newspapers. Many editors and reporters quit in protest upon Adelson's purchase of the Review-Journal. ReutersNew Hampshire: Andrea Reimann-Ciardelli ($1.1 billion)Born in Germany, Reimann-Ciardelli is the heir to the Reimann family fortune: Her great-grandfather, Ludwig Reimann, joined Johann Adam Benckiser’s chemical company in the 1800s. He married Benckiser’s daughter and after Benckiser’s death, took over the business. It eventually evolved into the holdings company JAB, which includes everything from Krispy Kreme and Panera Bread to Jimmy Choo and Bally shoes.In 2003 Reimann-Ciardelli sold her stake in the company for an estimated $1 billion. Her four siblings, Wolfgang, Matthias, Stefan and Renate, retain ownership. ReutersNew Jersey: John Overdeck ($5.5 billion)Overdeck, 48, is co-founder of Two Sigma Investments, a hedge fund that oversees more than $52 billion in investments.A math whiz as a kid, Overdeck won the silver medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad when he was 16. In 2011, he and his wife, Laura, started the Overdeck Family Foundation, which focuses on educational causes.
Overdeck Family FoundationNew Mexico: Mack C. Chase ($700 million)Chase, 87, made his fortune in the oilfields of Texas and New Mexico. He also owns Chase Farms, the largest producer of pecans in the U.S.He married his wife, Marilyn, in 1953 and the couple currently reside in Artesia.
Chase Foundation/VimeoNew York: David Koch ($51.5 billion)Along with his brother Charles, David Koch shares control of Koch Industries, the second largest private company in the U.S. He's a prominent philanthropist, giving millions to cancer organizations and to the arts in New York.He and his brother Charles are prominent conservatives, giving millions to right-wing think tanks and Republican candidates. David Koch was the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential nominee in 1980.
ReutersNorth Carolina: James Goodnight ($9.9 billion)In 1976 Goodnight and his partner, John Sall, co-founded the analytics software company SAS, which initially evaluated agriculture data. Goodnight was going to take SAS pubic in the early 2000s but reconsidered, thereby protecting it from the dot-com crash that took down so many other businesses.Along with Sall and his wife, Goodnight and his wife, Ann, started the Cary Academy prep school in 1996.
ReutersNorth Dakota: Gary Tharaldson ($900 million)Gary Tharaldson, 73, bought his first Super 8 motel in 1982, and has gone on to accumulate a portfolio of some 350 properties, from high-end hotels to economy motels.
Previously, Tharaldson was a gym teacher and sold insurance.
Getty ImagesOhio: Les Wexner ($5.4 billion)Wexner borrowed $5,000 from his aunt in 1963 to open The Limited. Today L Brands—which owns chains like Victoria’s Secret, Henri Bendel and Bath & Body Works—garners more than $12 billion annually.In addition to his 30-room mansion in New Albany, Ohio, Wexner owns Foxcote House, an 18th-century estate in Warwickshire, England.
L BrandsOklahoma: Harold Hamm ($19.5 billion)Born in 1945 to Oklahoma sharecroppers, Hamm revolutionized the oil and gas industry by pioneering the controversial process of fracking. Before working directly in oil, he owned a trucking company that shipped water to and from oil fields.One of Donald Trump's key energy advisers, Hamm was a candidate for Trump’s Secretary of Energy, a position that went to former Texas governor Rick Perry instead.When Hamm and his wife, Sue, divorced in 2014, she walked away with $975 million.
ReutersOregon: Phil Knight ($30.7 billion)Knight and his University of Oregon track coach, Bill Bowerman, each put up $500 to start what was then called Blue Ribbon Sports. In 1971, the company became Nike Inc., with revenues of more than $34 billion.Nike’s iconic “swoosh” was created by a University of Oregon student, who Knight paid $35 for the logo. ReutersPennsylvania: Victoria Mars ($6 billion)Mars, along with her three sisters, is the heir to the Mars candy empire, founded by their great-grandfather, Frank Mars, in 1911.After her father’s death in 2016, she inherited an estimated 8 percent stake in the company.
Getty ImagesNebraska: Warren Buffett ($85 billion)The “Oracle of Omaha” is the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a multinational conglomerate that owns Geico, Duracell, Fruit of the Loom, Dairy Queen and other well-known brands. Despite his vast fortune, Buffett is personally very frugal: He still lives in the Omaha home he bought in 1958 for $31,000.He’s also dedicated to philanthropy: Buffett, 87, has committed to giving away 99 percent of his wealth. Through the Giving Pledge, he urges other billionaires to donate at least half their fortune to charity, as well.
ReutersSouth Carolina: Anita Zucker ($2.5 billion)Zucker became CEO of chemical manufacturer the InterTech Group after the 2008 death of her husband, Jerry, who founded the company in 1982. It’s estimated InterTech has generated more than $3 billion in revenue.The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Zucker is the only billionaire in South Carolina. A Republican, she donated to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.Getty ImagesSouth Dakota: T. Denny Sanford ($2.5 billion)Sanford owns First Premier Bank, which only has 12 branches but is one of the largest issuers of credit cards, primarily to high-risk customers with little credit.Insisting he wants to die broke, Sanford, 82, has given away more than $1.6 billion to charity. Utilized in more than 3,000 classrooms, his Sanford Harmony program emphasizes socialization and positive relationships between kids, with the ultimate goal of lowering the divorce rate. “The Harmony program came from two divorces that I’ve had to go through,” he told the San Diego Union Tribune. “And [the] recognition that the divorce rate in this country is like 65 percent…That’s not healthy.”
ReutersTennessee: Thomas Frist Jr. ($9.7 billion)Frist and his family own Hospital Corporation of America, which manages more than 170 hospitals in the U.S. and the U.K. After a stint as a Air Force flight surgeon, he started the company with his father in 1968.Thomas, 80, is the older brother of former Senate majority leader Bill Frist.
Getty ImagesTexas: Alice Walton ($40 billion)Walton is an heir to the Walmart fortune but, unlike her siblings, doesn’t work for the company. Instead she focuses on philanthropy and collecting art. (Her personal collection is worth upwards of $500 million.)In his 1992 autobiography, Made in America, Sam Walton wrote that his daughter was "the most like me—a maverick—but even more volatile than I am."According to Forbes, 68-year-old Alice Walton is the richest woman in the world.
ReutersUtah: Gail Miller ($1.4 billion)Miller and her husband, Larry, started out with a single Toyota dealership, which they parlayed into a $4.7 billion operation with 64 dealerships, a movie theater chain and the NBA’s Utah Jazz.After Larry’s death in 2009, Gail took over as CEO of the Larry H. Miller Management Corporation. ReutersVermont: John Abele ($630 million)At 7, Abele was stricken with osteomyelitis, a bacterial infection affecting his bone marrow that required multiple surgeries and years of using crutches. In 1979, he founded Boston Scientific, a medical-device company that is now worth in the neighborhood of $9 billion.In 2007, Abele funded a salvage mission that located his father’s sunken Navy ship, which went down during World War II.
Getty ImagesVirginia: Jacqueline Mars ($23.8 billion)Mars (center) is one of the heirs to the Mars Inc. company. She worked for the company for nearly 20 years before retiring in 2016. Now 78, serves on the company’s board as well as those of a number of museums, and non-profits.Mars’ farm in Virginia has bred horses ridden by Olympic medalists. Getty ImagesWashington: Jeff Bezos ($151.4 billion)Currently the richest person in the world, Bezos started Amazon in his garage in 1994. Four years later he became one of Google’s first investors, backing the company with a $250,000 investment.Bezos, 54, also owns The Washington Post and the aerospace company Blue Origin. ReutersWest Virginia: Jim Justice II ($1.9 billion)The governor of West Virginia, Justice inherited his fortune from his father’s coal business. Initially a Republican, he switched parties before his 2016 campaign then switched back to being a Republican at a Donald Trump rally in 2017.As of this reporting, he’s still a Republican. ReutersWisconsin: John Menard Jr. ($10.5 billion)Menard, 78, launched Menards, a chain of home improvement centers, in 1960. Today, his home construction retail empire is worth an estimated $9.5 billion and is located primarily in the Midwest.His son is NASCAR race-car driver Paul Menard.
Getty ImagesWyoming: John Franklyn Mars ($23.8 billion)Two last names appeared numerous times on this list—Walton and Mars. John Mars, along with his brother and sister, owns a third of Mars Inc, the maker of M&M’s, Milky Way and 3 Musketeers and pet food brands like Pedigree and Whiskas.In 2015, Queen Elizabeth awarded Mars an honorary knighthood at Windsor Castle.Getty ImagesKansas: Charles Koch ($51.5 billion) Charles Koch is chairman of Koch Industries, the second largest private company in the U.S. The company was started as a refinery company by his father, Fred C. Koch, in 1940. Charles, as did his late brother, David, owns a 42 percent stake in the conglomerate, which is now involved in pollution-control technologies, fertilizers and commodity trading and produces Stainmaster carpet, Quilted Northern toilet paper and Dixie Cup. The pair loomed large in conservative politics—funding right-wing think tanks like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation—and are also major philanthropists, with multimillion dollar donations to medical research, higher education, criminal-justice reform and PBS. ForbesCalifornia: Mark Zuckerberg ($74 billion)
Facebook’s founder saw his net worth skyrocket after taking Facebook public. While shaky at first, the social platform’s stock has reached $180 a share—and Zuckerberg owns nearly 17 percent of it.He’s promised to donate 99 percent of his earnings from Facebook to charity over the course of his life. Getty ImagesColorado: Philip Anschutz ($12.7 billion)Anschutz earned his billions in oil, real estate, railroads, telecom and entertainment ventures. He owns the Coachella Music Festival, the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings and a third of the Los Angeles Lakers.Anschutz, 78, also owns stakes in the Staples Center, where the Lakers play, and London’s O2 arena. Getty ImagesConnecticut: Ray Dalio ($17.4 billion)Dalio, 69, is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund firm overseeing more than $160 billion in assets. He started playing the market at 12, using tips he received from golfers he caddied for, and launched the company at age 26 from his New York City apartment.
Getty ImagesDelaware: Robert Gore & Elizabeth Snyder ($750 million each)In 1969 Robert Gore invented Gore-Tex, the lightweight, waterproof fabric used to weatherize clothing and footwear. W.L. Gore & Associates, the company his parents started in 1958, owns the patent for Gore-Tex and has gone on to make more than $3.2 billion in sales.Getty ImagesFlorida: Thomas Peterffy ($25.7 billion)Hungarian-born Peterffy is the founder of Interactive Brokers, a trading platform for major investors. He came to the U.S. at age 21 in 1965, after his aristocratic family lost nearly everything to the Soviets.Divorced with three children, Peterffy relocated to Palm Beach from Connecticut, where he was the third richest person in the state. He reportedly listed his 80-acre Greenwich estate for $65 million, but it sold for just $21 million. Getty ImagesGeorgia: Jim Kennedy ($9 billion)Kennedy is the chair of Cox Enterprises, a media conglomerate that owns numerous TV and radio stations direct mail-order businesses and newspapers including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Under his leadership, the company’s profits rose from $1.8 billion in 1988 to $15.4 billion in 2008. After the death of his mother, Barbara Cox Anthony, in 2007 Kennedy inherited a 25 percent stake in Cox Enterprises.Kennedy, 70, was instrumental in Atlanta being chosen as the site of the 1996 Summer Olympics.Cox EnterprisesHawaii: Pierre Omidyar ($10.6 billion)Omidyar, 51, launched eBay in 1995 and became a billionaire three years later with the company’s initial public offering. In addition to being a well-known philanthropist, he’s involved in online journalism, launching the Honolulu Civil Beat, an investigative news site, and First Look Media, which owns The Intercept.
Born to Iranian parents in France, Omidyar moved to the U.S. with his family when he was 6.
Getty ImagesIdaho: Frank VanderSloot ($3.4 billion)VanderSloot, 70, came from a modest background, tending to the family ranch while his father worked on the railroad. He make his fortune in the 1980s with Melaleuca, a marketing company that sells environmentally friendly nutritional supplements, cleaning supplies, and personal-care products. A prominent donor to Republican candidates, VanderSloot was the national finance co-chair for Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.Frank and his wife, Belinda, have more than 50 grandchildren and own an estimated 117,500 acres of property across Idaho, Utah and Montana. Getty ImagesIllinois Ken Griffin ($9 billion)Griffin started trading stocks while at Harvard in the late ‘80s, installing a satellite on the roof of his dorm to get real-time quotes. In 1990, he founded the global investment firm Citidel, which now maintains an estimated $25 billion in investment capital.He’s donated more than a half-billion dollars to various institutions, many in Chicago, including multimillion dollar contributions to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Heights Early Childhood Center, the Field Museum and the Chicago Public Library.In November 2017 his charitable fund gifted $150 million to the the University of Chicago’s economics department, now renamed the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics.Getty ImagesIndiana: Carl Cook ($8.2 billion)Cook, 57, is the CEO of the Cook Group, a medical device manufacturer started by his parents in 1963 out of their Bloomington apartment. Carl took over the company after the death of his father, William, in 2011. The Cook Group now has more than 12,000 employees and over $2 billion in revenues.He and his wife, Marcy, still live in Bloomington. They have one daughter, Eleanor. Getty ImagesIowa: Harry Stine ($3.2 billion)Stone turned his family’s farm into the Stine Seed Company, the world's largest private seed company, which licenses corn and soybean genetics to major multinationals like Monsanto and Syngenta. Diagnosed with dyslexia and mild autism, Stine has an aptitude for analyzing data to improve yields.He still lives in a modest home in Adel and drives to work in his Ford F-150 pickup truck.
ReutersArkansas: Jim Walton ($40.3 billion)Jim Walton, 70, is the CEO of Arvest Bank and the youngest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton. He and his siblings own just under half of all Walmart stock and regularly appear on Forbes list of America’s most wealthy individuals.Jim Walton lives in Bentonville, Arkansas, with his wife, Lynne.
Getty ImagesKentucky: B. Wayne Hughes ($2.7 billion)Hughes has pack rats to thank for his fortune: In 1972 he co-founded Public Storage, now the largest self-storage business in the world.He’s a big thoroughbred horse racing fan, with nine Kentucky Derby champions to his name—three of them Triple Crown winners. Hughes is also a prominent conservative, giving millions of dollars to Karl Rove’s political think tank, American Crossroads. ReutersLouisiana: Gayle Benson ($2.7 billion)After the March 2018 death of her husband, businessman Tom Benson, 71-year-old Gayle inherited the bulk of his wealth, as well as ownership of the New Orleans Saints and the Pelicans.Tom’s daughter from a different marriage filed suit, however, claiming her 90-year-old was mentally incompetent at the end of his life. The suit was settled confidentially. ReutersMaine: Susan Alfond ($1.6 billion)Susan Alfond (far left in the photo) and her three brothers inherited their fortune from their father, Harold Alfond, founder of the Dexter Shoe Company. In 1993, Harold sold the company to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway for $420 million in stock. It’s now worth billions.Alfond, 72, lives in Scarborough, Maine.
Getty ImagesMaryland: Ted Lerner ($5.1 billion)Lerner made his mint in real estate, first selling homes to developers and later building hotels, apartments and other commercial and retail spaces himself. He started Lerner Enterprises in 1952, borrowing $250 from his wife as seed money.Lerner, 92, is principal owner of the Washington Nationals.
ReutersMassachusetts: Abigail Johnson ($16.9 billion)Johnson is the CEO of Fidelity Investments, an investment firm founded by her grandfather, Edward Johnson II, in 1946. The Johnson family owns an estimated 49 percent stake in the company, with Abigail personally controlling 24.5 percent.She and her husband, Christopher McKown, livin Boston with their two children.ReutersMichigan: Daniel GilbertDan Gilbert cofounded Quicken Loans in 1985 with $5,000 he earned from selling pizzas. It would go on to become the largest online mortgage lender. He briefly sold Quicken to Intuit in 1999, but bought it back three years later.Gilbert, 56, is a major investor in Detroit, putting $2.5 billion toward renovating buildings in the city. He also owns the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and the NHL’s Cleveland Monsters.He and his wife, Jennifer, live in Franklin, Michigan, and have five children. Getty ImagesMinnesota: Glen Taylor ($2.8 billion)Taylor, who grew up poor on a farm, got his start working for a wedding business in college. He later bought the company and turned it into Taylor Corporation, a printing company with over $2.2 billion in sales as of 2017. Taylor stepped down as CEO in 2015 but remains chairman.In 2014, he purchased the Minneapolis Star Tribune for $100 million because he wanted to keep the paper under local ownership. He also owns the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx.Taylor, 77, lives in Mankato with his wife, Becky.
ReutersMississippi: James & Thomas Duff ($1.2 billion each)The Duff brothers own Duff Capital Investors, a holdings company with more than $2.6 billion in revenue. Since founding it in 2007, they’ve acquired the KLLM trucking company, the T.L. Wallace Construction firm and DeepWell Energy Services. But they inherited their largest investment company from their father, Ernest Duff, who founded the Southern Tire Mart in 1973.In 2016, a plot to kill Tim Duff resulted in the arrest of three men.Getty ImagesMissouri: Pauline MacMillan Keinath ($7.2 billion)MacMillan Keinath is the biggest shareholder of Cargill, the largest agricultural, crop and livestock company in the world. (All the eggs served at McDonald’s come through a Cargill plant.) The company was founded as a grain warehouse in 1865 by MacMillan Keinath’s great-grandfather, W.W. Cargill.The Cargill family still owns 90 percent of the business.
Getty ImagesMontana: Dennis Washington ($5.9 million)Washington, 84, overcame childhood polio to found Washington Companies, a billion-dollar construction and mining business that owns copper mines, railroads and diamond companies, among others.He also owns a private yacht, the Attessa IV, and a Boeing Business Jet. WashCorp
