Austin's top billionaires slide on Forbes list
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Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk, who spends a significant amount of time in Austin, dropped to No. 2 on the Forbes annual billionaires list. Photo: Photo by Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images
Austin's billionaires are still rich, just a little less rich than a year ago, per Forbes' annual billionaire list.
Driving the news: The annual list of the world's richest people, published Wednesday, found that nearly half of all billionaires are poorer than they were a year ago due to falling stocks and rising interest rates.
- The U.S. is still home to the most billionaires, with 735 Americans making the list for a collective net worth of $4.5 trillion.
By the numbers: Tesla founder Elon Musk, who spends at least part of his time in Austin, slipped to the No. 2 spot after his acquisition of Twitter, with an estimated net worth of $180 billion. That's compared to $219 billion a year ago.
- Bernard Arnault, head of French luxury goods brand LVMH, took Musk's place as the world's richest person.
Zoom in: Dell Technologies founder and chairman Michael Dell also saw his net worth slide from $55.1 billion to $50.1 billion, moving from No. 16 on the Forbes list in 2022 to No. 23 this year. Other Austin residents on the list include:
- Robert Smith, founder of Austin-based Vista Equity, ranked No. 261 with a net worth of $8 billion, an increase from $6.7 billion in 2022.
- Thai Lee, CEO of IT provider SHI, ranked No. 567 and saw her net worth increase from $4.1 billion in 2022 to $4.8 billion.
- John Paul DeJoria, founder of Patron Spirits Co. and co-founder of hair care company John Paul Mitchell Systems, saw his $2.9 billion net worth drop slightly from last year.
- Joe Liemandt, founder of ESW Capital, ranks 611 and grew his net worth from $3 billion to $4.5 billion.
- David Booth, co-founder of Dimensional Fund Advisors, saw his $1.7 billion net worth remain roughly the same from 2022.
Flashback: Austin saw the biggest jump in millionaires in the country, with a growth rate of 102% between 2012-2022, per the recently published USA Wealth Report, by UK-based consultancy firm Henley and Partners.
- In December 2022, Austin was home to 30,500 millionaires, 86 centi-millionaires, and nine billionaires, the report found.
Of note: The Forbes list isn't searchable by city of origin, so it's difficult to know the exact number of Austin-based billionaires that made the analysis.