Meet the billionaire winners and losers of the dot-com bubble, Great Recession and Covid-19 crash.



Crashes, wipe-outs, recessions.&nbsp;Fortunes are often forged, or fumbled away, in the fire of economic downturns. When the Covid-19 pandemic began to sweep the world in early 2020, the wealth of U.S. billionaires plummeted in lockstep with the stock market. Yet, just six months after the market bottomed out, and with the coronavirus still to be contained,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/">The Forbes 400 richest Americans are doing better than ever, worth a record $3.2 trillion</a>&nbsp;in all. In other words, the pain—at least for the ultra-rich—was remarkably short lived.



So&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;dug through the archives to compare how America’s billionaire class has fared during and after the past three big market drops: the dot-com crash of the early 2000s, the Great Recession of the late 2000s and the Covid-19 meltdown of this year. Each downturn hit different industries hardest, but a common theme is clear: The billionaires who are down are rarely out, and there are always clever thinkers amassing new riches, even when times are tough.



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<h1 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">The Dot-Com Crash</h1>



As a huge wave of consumers around the globe joined the internet, rabid investors hoping to get in on the tech boom poured funds into wildly unprofitable startups promising to change the world. The S&amp;P 500 hit a record high in March 2000. Then the bubble began to burst, sending the S&amp;P down 50% over the next two and a half years. Jeff Bezos began an April 2001 letter to Amazon shareholders with a single word: “Ouch.” There were 298 billionaires on the 2000 Forbes 400 list, worth a total of $1.2 trillion; by 2002, the list had lost 73 billionaires and $350 billion in aggregate net worth. Markets, which were also hit by the 9/11 terror attacks, didn’t fully recover until May 2007—more than seven years after the bubble popped.



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<h1 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">Losers:</h1>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Bill Gates</h3>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-1185999096-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-47334" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-1185999096-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-1185999096-scaled-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-1185999096-scaled-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-1185999096-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-1185999096-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GettyImages-1185999096-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption>(Photo by Mike Cohen/Getty Images for The New York Times)</figcaption></figure></div>



Shares of Microsoft plummeted 63% in 2001, helping shave $9 billion off Gates’ net worth for the 2001 Forbes 400 (and he’d drop by another $11 billion in 2002). Yet there were promising signs: The federal government announced that it would no longer seek to break up Microsoft, which was just a month away from releasing a new product: the hit Xbox.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Monte Zweben</h3>



Of the 51 people who fell off The Forbes 400 in 2001, none fell harder than Zweben, who took his ecommerce software startup Blue Martini public in 2000—then&nbsp;watched as 98% of his $1.4 billion fortune evaporated in less than a year when shares nosedived. Zweben has founded and run a handful of tech outfits since, but has never made it back onto The Forbes 400.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Stanley Druckenmiller</h3>



The head of George Soros’ Quantum Fund, Druckenmiller struck gold shorting the British Pound in 1992 but eight years later made an ill-timed bet on tech at the height of the bubble. “I bought $6 billion worth of tech stocks, and in six weeks I had lost $3 billion in that one play,”&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2018/05/16/druckenmillers-big-mistake/" target="_blank">he later recalled</a>. “I didn’t learn anything. I already knew that I wasn’t supposed to do that. I was just an emotional basketcase and I couldn’t help myself.”



<h1 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">Winners:</h1>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Mark Cuban</h3>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1158140219-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-47631" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1158140219-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1158140219-scaled-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1158140219-scaled-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1158140219-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1158140219-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1158140219-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption> (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



He got rich selling internet radio company Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in cash and stock in 1999—near the top of the dot-com bubble. Then he made an even smarter move, using collars to protect his Yahoo stock from a price drop, which soon came when the shares plummeted 90% in 2000.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Leon Levy</h3>



The investor who helped build Oppenheimer &amp; Co. made more than $100 million shorting the Nasdaq as the&nbsp;market sputtered. When the longtime optimist spoke with&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;in 2002, he was still bearish about a market recovery. “The outlook for profits is disappointing,&#8221;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/1209/174.html#4b3528df476b">Levy warned</a>.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Thomas Bailey</h3>



The founder of mutual fund giant Janus Capital managed to find a way to sell his shares high, even during the market low—thanks to an unusual agreement that gave him the right to sell his stake to Janus’ parent company for a price based on the prior year’s profits. In 2001, with Janus struggling along with the rest of the economy, Bailey decided to sell—forcing the company to purchase his shares for&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-oct-12-me-56332-story.html" target="_blank">double their market value</a>.



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<h1 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">The Great Recession</h1>



A real estate market run rampant came crashing down in late 2007, sending the U.S. economy spiraling into a historic recession. The federal government&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/heres-how-much-2008-bailouts-really-cost" target="_blank">spent some $500 billion on bailouts</a>&nbsp;for the likes of big banks, automakers and insurers. In 2009, more than two-thirds of the list was poorer than the year before as the aggregate wealth of the bunch fell by $300 billion. The S&amp;P, which peaked in October 2007, didn’t make up its losses for five and a half years.



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<h1 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">Winners:</h1>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Warren Buffett</h3>



The crash hit the Oracle of Omaha hard at first, with Berkshire Hathaway stock tumbling 32% in 2008, along with the broader market. But the famed value investor, who has long preached being “fearful when others are greedy” and “greedy when others are fearful,&#8221; used the crash to go&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html" target="_blank">bargain hunting</a>. He snapped up preferred stock of titans like Goldman Sachs, General Electric and Dow Chemical on the cheap, bets that earned billions as the companies recovered.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Andrew Beal</h3>



In 2004, as personal and corporate debt ballooned in the market runup, the shrewd banker began hoarding cash. He struck when the markets began to tumble in 2007, gobbling up loans and assets from struggling banks for pennies on the dollar, quickly juicing his profits. “This is the opportunity of my lifetime,&#8221;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/2009/04/03/banking-andy-beal-business-wall-street-beal.html#3d7b4261a4d5">Beal told&nbsp;Forbes</a>&nbsp;in the middle of the crisis.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">John Paulson</h3>



The biggest short: Paulson, a hedge funder who was convinced the economy was on the verge of collapse, began shorting the subprime real estate market before the crash. He&nbsp;pocketed some $4 billion from the bold bet, catapulting him from less than $300 million in net worth to a spot on The Forbes 400 in a single year. By 2008, he’d be worth $4.5 billion.



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<h1 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">The COVID Crash</h1>



The Covid crash came on fast, with S&amp;P 500 diving 34% from its February 2020 peak in less than a month, as the virus spread around the globe. But, for most members of The Forbes 400, the downturn didn’t last long. The S&amp;P recouped all of its losses in just 181 days, and was again hitting new record highs by August 18. America’s richest billionaires are, once again,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/">richer than ever</a>.



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<h1 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">Losers:</h1>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Micky Arison</h3>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="855" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-614064188-855x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-47632" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-614064188-855x1024.jpg 855w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-614064188-scaled-300x359.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-614064188-scaled-600x718.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-614064188-251x300.jpg 251w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-614064188-768x920.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-614064188-1283x1536.jpg 1283w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-614064188-1710x2048.jpg 1710w" sizes="(max-width: 855px) 100vw, 855px" /><figcaption> (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



Like other cruise operators, his Carnival Corp. has been crippled by the coronavirus. In early 2020, more than 700 passengers on a ship operated by Carnival’s Princess Cruises&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2020/04/24/coronavirus-cleanup-how-cruise-ship-sanitized-after-outbreak-diamond-princess/5136469002/" target="_blank">reportedly became infected</a>&nbsp;with the virus. In May, Congress said it’s probing the company’s virus policies. (Carnival has said it will cooperate with the investigation.) Meanwhile, shares sunk 68% from last year’s Forbes 400 list through late July 2020, knocking Arison’s fortune down by 31%, to $5.6 billion.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Edward DeBartolo, Jr.</h3>



The real estate mogul, who pleaded guilty to not reporting a bribe from a Louisiana government official in 1998, got a presidential pardon from Donald Trump in February. Financially, things have been a bit rockier: Shares of Simon Property Group, which make up much of his fortune, have fallen 60% since last year’s list as America’s largest mall owner reels from the crisis. He and his family sold their DeBartolo Realty to Simon in 1998 for $1.5 billion in stock.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Harold Hamm</h3>



&#8220;It just grabbed my imagination that anybody could find this hidden, ancient wealth and it was yours,&#8221; the fracking pioneer&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0202/066.html#73d8b86d3681">gushed to&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;about his love of the oil business in 2009</a>. What a difference a decade makes. With a price war and lower demand for fuel cratering oil prices, Hamm’s having a tough go of it these days. His fortune has fallen $3.7 billion since last year’s Forbes 400 as shares of his Continental Resources have dropped 43%.



<h1 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">Winners:</h1>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Eric Yuan</h3>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="684" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1173631560-1024x684.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-47633" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1173631560-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1173631560-scaled-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1173631560-scaled-600x401.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1173631560-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1173631560-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1173631560-2048x1367.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption> (Photo by Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



With the world working from home, the Zoom founder <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2019/04/19/zoom-zoom-zoom-the-exclusive-inside-story-of-the-new-billionaire-behind-techs-hottest-ipo/">is cashing in big</a> as his video conferencing app has become a corporate darling. Shares are up more than 500% since Zoom’s April 2019 IPO, launching Yuan onto The Forbes 400 list for the first time, with an $11 billion fortune.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Reed Hastings</h3>



His stay-at-home staple Netflix has reaped the rewards of a world in quarantine, with hits like “Tiger King” and “Extraction.” The streaming service&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnchmielewski/2020/09/07/how-netflixs-reed-hastings-rewrote-the-hollywood-script/#5620b13215df">has added around 1 million subscriptions a month</a>&nbsp;in the U.S. and Canada, plus another 2 million a month abroad, since the pandemic began.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Ernest Garcia III</h3>



Carvana—the “Amazon of used cars” that he cofounded as part of his billionaire father Ernest Garcia II’s DriveTime Automotive Group—is another Covid lockdown hit, with shares up 77% since last year’s list. Carvana, which the Garcias spun out of DriveTime and took public in 2017, allows customers to buy and sell cars online.



-Chase Peterson-Withorn, Forbes Staff

Forbes Media Centennial Celebration

Billionaires On The Brink: How The Forbes 400 Makes And Loses Billions During Market Crashes

The average member of The Forbes 400 is, at 67,  old enough to retire. But 14 members of the new Forbes list of America&#8217;s 400 richest people &#8211; including the fourth richest person on the list &#8211;  are under 40. Ten are self-made tech entrepreneurs, four inherited their fortunes from their families, and all of them are men. The youngest member of The Forbes 400 for the third year in a row is 27-year-old Evan Spiegel, the founder of Snapchat and the CEO of its parent company, Snap.
The youngest members of The Forbes 400 are more likely to drop out of college than The Forbes 400 as a whole: 28% of list members under 40 are college dropouts, compared to only 11% of the overall list. Two of these dropouts are Harvard roommates and Facebook cofounders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, both 33, who left college after their sophomore year to work on building Facebook full-time.
Zuckerberg is the richest member of The Forbes 400 who is under the age of 40. With a $71 billion fortune, he is worth more than the rest of the under 40’s combined. At only 33, Zuckerberg controls a social media platform used by more than a quarter of the world’s population. In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, he is grappling with the role Facebook played in spreading Russian-sponsored ads and fake news. His second daughter, August, was born in August 2017. At the birth of his first daughter, Max, in December 2015, Zuckerberg pledged to give away 99% of his Facebook stock in his lifetime and formed the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative as an entity to do so. In September, Zuckerberg said he would sell up to 75 million Facebook shares (worth up to $12.8 billion on the day he made the announcement) in the next 18 months to fund his philanthropy.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2017/10/18/donald-trumps-fortune-fell-600-million-one-year/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: How Donald Trump&#8217;s Fortune Fell $600 Million In One Year</a>
The second richest under-40 on the list is Facebook cofounder Moskovitz, who is just a few days younger than Zuckerberg. In 2008, Moskovitz left Facebook and founded software start-up Asana, but his estimated $13.6 billion net worth still stems mainly from his Facebook stock.
The only newcomer among the under-40s this year is Rishi Shah. He became a billionaire after his start-up, Outcome Health, which places tablets in doctors’ offices so that pharmaceutical companies can advertise their drugs, raised $600 million at a $5 billion valuation in May. But the start-up’s lofty valuation is already in question: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2017/10/04/sizzling-startup-outcome-healths-drug-marketing-shows-signs-of-struggle/#5eebd7435ac1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Forbes reported in October</a> that some drug companies are dissatisfied with Outcome’s results and that Pfizer got a full $4 million refund for one ad campaign. Outcome says it provides “meaningful returns” and that the majority of its customers renew their deals.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/lists/2017/10/18/forbes-400-2017-meet-richest-people-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Forbes 400 2017: Meet The Richest People In America</a>
The youngest Forbes 400 member, Evan Spiegel, has had a rollercoaster year. In March 2017, Snap had its initial public offering and the net worths of cofounders Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, 29, initially rose as high as $5.4 billion on the first day of trading. But Snap stock dropped nearly 40% from its IPO through late September as user growth slowed and Facebook&#8217;s Instagram launched copycat features. Over the summer, Spiegel married former Victoria&#8217;s Secret model Miranda Kerr.
With a $13.2 billion fortune, Wal-Mart heir Lucas Walton is the richest under 40 who inherited his fortune. He is a grandson of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, and inherited his stake in the retail giant after his father, John Walton, died in a place crash in 2005.
The number of billionaires under 40 on this year’s list is the same as it was last year. While Shah joined the list this year, beer heir Alejandro Santo Domingo turned 40 in the past year. His brother Andres Santo Domingo and nephew Julio Mario Santo Domingo III, who are both Forbes 400 members, are still under 40.
Here are all of The Forbes 400 members under the age of 40:
Mark Zuckerberg, Age 33
Net worth: $71 billion
Dustin Moskovitz, Age 33
Net worth: $13.6 billion
Lucas Walton, Age 31
Net worth: $13.2 billion
Scott Duncan, Age 35
Net worth: $5.5 billion
Andres Santo Domingo, Age 39
Net worth: $4.8 billion
Nathan Blecharczyk, Age 36
Net worth: $3.8 billion
Brian Chesky, Age 36
Net worth: $3.8 billion
Joe Gebbia, Age 34
Net worth: $3.8 billion
Rishi Shah, Age 31
Net worth: $3.6 billion
Robert Pera, Age 39
Net worth: $3.2 billion
Bobby Murphy, Age 29
Net worth: $3.1 billion
Evan Spiegel, age 27
Net worth: $3.1 billion
Sean Parker, age 37
Net worth: $2.6 billion
Julio Mario Santo Domingo III, age 32
Net worth: $2.4 billion
Net worths for The Forbes 400 were calculated using closing stock prices from September 22, 2017.
&#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Kate Vinton</a>, FORBES STAFF

14 Under 40: Meet The Youngest Billionaires On The Forbes 400 2017

It was another record year for the wealthiest people in America, as the price of admission to the country’s most exclusive club jumped nearly 18%. The minimum net worth to make The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans is now a record $2 billion, up from $1.7 billion a year ago. The group’s total net worth climbed to $2.7 trillion, up from $2.4 trillion, and the average net worth rose to $6.7 billion, up from $6 billion.
Even at these new heights, entrepreneurs are breaking into the ranks for the first time as they mint fortunes in everything from telecom to booze to fishing. There were 22 newcomers, 14 of whom are self-made entrepreneurs. Among the most notable: Arizona iced tea cofounder Don Vultaggio; Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings; Tito Beveridge, the creator of Tito’s Handmade Vodka; Chuck Bundrant, whose Trident Seafoods sells his fish to places like McDonald’s and Burger King; and Rocco Commisso, founder of cable TV and broadband firm Mediacom and owner of the New York Cosmos, a soccer club based in Brooklyn.
Every person in the top 10 got at least $1 billion richer in the past year.  Number one for the 24th consecutive year is Bill Gates, who is now worth $89 billion, up $8 billion from a year ago. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, whose fortune rose $14.5 billion in a year, retains the number two spot for the second consecutive year with a net worth of $81.5 billion, while Warren Buffett holds onto the number 3 spot. His net worth increased by $12.5 billion, despite giving away more than $3 billion of Berkshire-Hathaway stock in July. The biggest gainer (in dollar terms) is Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. His fortune jumped $15.5 billion, but in a crazy year like this one, it’s only good enough for him to hold onto his ranking as fourth richest.
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/#version:static" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Richest People in America List</a>
Gainers (there were 289) since last year’s list outnumbered losers (just 51) by more than five to one.  A strong stock market was the main reason for this record-breaking year. The S&amp;P 500, for instance, was up roughly 17% in the 12 months since the 2016 Forbes 400 list.
The most notable loser was President Donald Trump, whose fortune fell $600 million to $3.1 billion. A tough New York real estate market, particularly for retail locations; a costly lawsuit and an expensive presidential campaign all contributed to the declining fortune of the 45th president.
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2017/10/18/donald-trumps-fortune-fell-600-million-one-year/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: How Donald Trump&#8217;s Fortune Fell $600 Million In One Year</a>
A record 169 billionaires were too poor to make the cut, including well-known figures such as activist investor Nelson Peltz and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg. Twenty-six members of the 2016 class fell out of the ranks. Among the most notable dropouts is Under Armour’s Kevin Plank, whose fortune fell to $1.7 billion, down from $3 billion, as the stock price of his sports apparel company unraveled by 60%. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross also fell out of the ranks, after filing disclosure forms showing a net worth of less than $1 billion. He told Forbes that he shifted billions to trusts for his family members, but did not provide evidence of having done so.
Our estimates are a snapshot of the fortunes of America’s wealthiest people using stock prices from September 22. Some of The Forbes 400 become richer or poorer within weeks, even days, of publication. We track these changes at <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/#version:realtime" target="_blank" rel="noopener">forbes.com/forbes-400</a>. That&#8217;s where you&#8217;ll find more information on list members, as well as photos, videos, and coverage of these influential billionaires.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/richlist/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LIST: Africa&#8217;s Billionaires</a>
Methodology: This is the 36th year of the flagship Forbes 400. Though we’ve been at it a long time, it’s always a challenge. Our reporters dig deep. This year we started with a list of more than 600 individuals considered strong candidates. When possible, we met with Forbes 400 members and candidates in person or spoke with them by phone. We also interviewed their employees, handlers, rivals, peers and attorneys. Uncovering their fortunes required us to pore over thousands of SEC documents, court records, probate records and web and print stories. We took into account all types of assets: stakes in public and private companies, real estate, art, yachts, planes, ranches, vineyards, jewelry, car collections and more.
We factored in debt. Of course, we don’t pretend to know what is listed on each billionaire’s private balance sheet, although some candidates did provide paperwork to that effect. Some billionaires presiding over private companies were happy to share their financial figures, but others were less forthcoming. To value the private businesses, we couple revenue or profit estimates with prevailing price-to-revenue or price-to-earnings ratios for similar public companies.
We didn’t include dispersed family fortunes. We did include wealth belonging to a member’s immediate relatives if the wealth could be traced to a single living person. In that case you’ll see “&amp; family.” We also include married couples who built fortunes and businesses together. In those instances, we list both names. The Forbes 400 is a list of American citizens who own assets in the U.S. &#8211; Written by By <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/#4a466b153523" target="_self">Kerry A. Dolan</a> and Luisa Kroll, FORBES STAFF

Forbes 400 2017: Meet The Richest People In America

A tough New York real estate market, a costly lawsuit and an expensive presidential campaign all contributed to the declining fortune of the 45th president. After months of digging through financial disclosures and public property records and conducting dozens of interviews, Forbes now estimates POTUS&#8217; net worth at $3.1 billion, down from $3.7 billion a year ago. He drops to No. 248 in the ranks of the richest people in America, down from No. 156 in 2016.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/politics/2017/10/12/50-minutes-oval-office-citizen-trump-barely-word-money/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: 50 Minutes In The Oval Office With Trump &#8211; And Barely A Word About His Money</a>
The biggest hit was to Trump&#8217;s real estate portfolio, which is weighted heavily toward New York City. Values of several Manhattan properties, particularly those on or near Fifth Avenue, have dropped, shaving nearly $400 million off his fortune. Some of his golf properties, including ones in Miami, Ireland and Scotland, have also declined in value, as some would-be guests stayed away, apparently offended by the president&#8217;s politics and bombast. Trump&#8217;s cash pile is down an estimated $100 million since last year, after he spent $66 million on his campaign and $25 million settling a lawsuit over Trump University. As always, we refined our estimates based on new information uncovered during months of reporting.
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/lists/2017/10/18/forbes-400-2017-meet-richest-people-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Meet The Richest People In America</a>
A handful of Trump&#8217;s assets rose in value in the past year, including the hotel-condo tower in Las Vegas that he owns with fellow Forbes 400 member Phil Ruffin and his minority stake in a downtown San Francisco office building, which continues to benefit from the red-hot real estate market there. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Dan Alexander and </a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdrange/#46912f5c45b3" target="_self">Matt Drange</a>, FORBES STAFF

Tag: Forbes 400

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