By Haddon Libby
Last week’s article focused on Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. This week, let’s look at the youngest billionaires in the United States.
It is no surprise that it is easier to become a billionaire if you have billionaire parents or grandparents. If you don’t come from that gene pool, if you go to Harvard or Stanford, you have a better chance of becoming a billionaire than most universities.
While the wealthiest young people often come from the Technology industry, Finance/Investments is a top place to earn billions. Of the 400 people on this list, 112 came from Finance with most managing money for others or making investments. Tech is responsible for 69 billionaires.
Lukas Walton (pictured) is the youngest billionaire at 37 years of age with $24 billion. He inherited his money as the grandson of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. Lukas attended Colorado College where he graduated with a degree in Environmentally Sustainable Business in 2010.
Second on the list is another heir to an heir – Josh Kushner with $3.6 billion. Harvard educated, Josh is the brother of former President Trump’s son-in-law, Jerred Kushner and son of disbarred attorney and real estate developer Charles Kushner, 69. The elder Kushner got his start by managing his father’s 4,000 properties.
Do you know who Dustin Moskovitz is? With a net worth of $12.2 billion, Moskovitz was Mark Zuckerberg’s roommate at Harvard and helped create Facebook.
Eight days older than Moskovitz is Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook. Zuckerberg is fourth on this list and amongst the ten wealthiest Americans. Harvard educated; Zuckerberg’s net worth is $106 billion. Zuckerberg was born to upper-class parents who work as a psychiatrist and a dentist.
Positions five through seven go to Nathan Blecharczyk ($9.5 billion), Scott Duncan ($7.4 billion) and Brian Armstrong ($3.7 billion) – each 40 years of age. Blecharczyk also attended Harvard and made his initial fortune by providing web-hosting services to spammers. In 2008, he partnered with Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia to create AirBnB. Chesky (42) is worth $10 billion and tenth on the list followed by Gebbia (42) and worth $9 billion.
Scott Duncan inherited $3.1 billion upon the death of his father in 2010. The elder Duncan co-founded Enterprise Products, a publicly listed oil and gas pipeline operator. Scott attended Houston Community College. His net worth today is $7.4 billion.
Brian Armstrong is the CEO of Coinbase and has a net worth of $3.7 billion. Born to parents who were engineers, Armstrong attended Rice University before starting his career at IBM. In 2011, Armstrong joined AirBnb as an engineer. While at AirBnb, he worked nights writing code to create the ability to store cryptocurrency. Within a year, he left to start Coinbase which went public in 2021.
Eighth on the list is the youngest female billionaire – Lynsi Lavelle Snyder-Ellington (41) who is worth $6.7 billion. Lynsi is the granddaughter of In-N-Out Burger founder Guy Snyder and owns 50% of the company.
Following Snyder-Ellington, the second youngest female billionaire is Jane Lauder, 50 and worth $3.4 billion. Lauder is the granddaughter of Estee and Joseph Lauder, founders of Estee Lauder.
In third is MacKenzie Scott (53), Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife, with a $37 billion net worth.
Falling off the list this year is Donald Trump. Trump was on the first Forbes 400 list with his father in 1982 when he convinced editors that his father’s net worth was mostly his. He fell off the list in 1990 , 2021 and again in 2023. Upon finding out that he fell off the Forbes list last month, Trump began calling it “Forbes Fake 400” and a “China Propaganda Machine – EXPOSED.” Trump currently ranks as the 47th richest Floridian.
Haddon Libby is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of RIA firm, Winslow Drake Investment Management. For more information on our award-winning services, please visit www.WinslowDrake.com.
