California Home To The Most Billionaires In The U.S.

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

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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2022/04/05/golden-state-billionaires-california-home-to-the-most-billionaires-in-the-us/