New York and Texas are billionaire hubs, but no state has more members of the Forbes list than California.
F
or all the talk about business-types leaving California, the Golden State is still home to the most billionaires in the U.S.
According to Forbes’ 2022 World’s Billionaires list, 186 billionaires live in California, down from 189 a year ago, but far more than any other state, even New York (135 billionaire residents) and Texas (67).
The small decline is due to a few high profile billionaires who did indeed move out of the state: Luminar founder Austin Russell, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, private equity executive Orlando Bravo and Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield. Russell and Bravo decamped to Florida, while Houston moved to Austin, Texas, and Butterfield went to Colorado.
Why does California reign supreme? Thank the booming technology industry. Almost half of the state’s billionaires come from tech. Much of that wealth is concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area, where 116 of the state’s billionaires reside. That includes the state’s richest residents: Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Sixty-seven billionaires live in Southern California, including 45 in Los Angeles, newcomer Rihanna and Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel.
After tech, 22% of California’s billionaires come from finance and investments, including brokerage billionaire Charles Schwab and Peter Thiel, and 7% hail from fashion and retail, including Fashion Nova founder Richard Saghian and the Fisher family, who own clothing retailer Gap. Notable newcomers to the list who call California home: Brex founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, who moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles last year, and Grammarly founder Max Lytvyn.
Here are the 20 richest people in California:
Net worths are as of March 11, 2022.
1.
Larry Page
Net worth: $111 billion
Source of wealth: Alphabet
Residence: Palo Alto
2 .
Sergey Brin
Net worth: $107 billion
Source of wealth: Alphabet
Residence: Los Altos
3 .
Mark Zuckerberg
Net worth: $67.3 billion
Source of wealth: Facebook
Residence: Palo Alto
4 .
Eric Schmidt
Net worth: $22.1 billion
Source of wealth: Alphabet
Residence: Atherton
5.
Jensen Huang
Net worth: $20.6 billion
Source of wealth: semiconductors
Residence: Los Altos
6.
Laurene Powell Jobs & family
Net worth: $16.4 billion
Source of wealth: Apple, Disney
Residence: Palo Alto
7.
Donald Bren
Net worth: $16.2 billion
Source of wealth: Real estate
Residence: Newport Beach
8.
Robert Pera
Net worth: $14.6 billion
Source of wealth: Ubiquiti Networks
Residence: San Jose
9.
John Doerr
Net worth: $12.7 billion
Source of wealth: Venture capital
Residence: Woodside
10.
Charles Schwab
Net worth: $12.2 billion
Source of wealth: Discount brokerage
Residence: Woodside
11.
Brian Chesky
Net worth: $11.5 billion
Source of wealth: Airbnb
Residence: San Francisco
12.
Dustin Moskovitz
Net worth: $11.5 billion
Source of wealth: Facebook, Asana
Residence: San Francisco
13.
David Cheriton
Net worth: $10.9 billion
Source of wealth: Alphabet
Residence: Palo Alto
14.
Joe Gebbia
Net worth: $10 billion
Source of wealth: Airbnb
Residence: San Francisco
15.
David Geffen
Net worth: $10 billion
Source of wealth: Movies, record labels
Residence: Beverly Hills
16.
Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family
Net worth: $9.9 billion
Source of wealth: Alphabet
Residence: Palo Alto
17.
Jan Koum
Net worth: $9.8 billion
Source of wealth: WhatsApp
Residence: Atherton
18.
John Collison
Net worth: $9.5 billion
Source of wealth: Stripe
Residence: San Francisco
19.
Patrick Collison
Net worth: $9.5 billion
Source of wealth: Stripe
Residence: San Francisco
20.
Gordon Moore
Net worth: $9.5 billion
Source of wealth: Intel
Residence: Woodside
MORE FROM FORBES BILLIONAIRES 2022
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2022/04/05/golden-state-billionaires-california-home-to-the-most-billionaires-in-the-us/