CA’s Richest Person Is Worth $278B, Ranks Number 3 On Forbes 400

With a net worth of $908 billion, Elon Musk again tops the Forbes 400, a ranking of the nation’s wealthiest billionaires that includes Larry Page, the richest person in California.

Forbes said Musk’s place at the top of its 45th annual Forbes 400 ranking shows “the wealth gap is widening, even among the ultra-rich.” Those on the ranking, released Tuesday, are worth a record $8 trillion, up from $6.6 trillion a year ago. Together, the 20 richest billionaires account for $4 trillion of the total, up from $970 billion from last year.

“Elon Musk’s trillionaire moment was short-lived, but the wealth controlled by the top 20 is massive,” Forbes said.

Billionaires in the top 10 on the list from California are:

• #3. Larry Page, former CEO of Alphabet (Google), $278 billion
  Page is the former CEO of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, but stepped down in 2019. He is currently a board member and a controlling shareholder of Alphabet.
• #5. Sergey Brin, former President of Alphabet (Google), $256 billion
  Brin is the former president of Alphabet, parent company of Google, but stepped down in 2019. He is currently a board member and a controlling shareholder.
• #6. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (Facebook, Instagram), $212 billion
  Zuckerberg, was a programmer who started Facebook for college students in 2004 at the age of 19. He is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder of its parent company Meta.
• #8. Jensen Huang, Cofounder, President and CEO of Nvidia, $199 billion
  Huang cofounded Nvidia, which develops graphics chips, in 1993. He has been its CEO and president since co-founding the company.

Even with the list threshold rising to a record $4.4 billion — up from $3.8 billion in 2025 — strong financial growth allowed 34 newcomers to join it. Notably, a record 590 U.S. billionaires were “too poor to make the cut,” Forbes said.

Many of the 34 newcomers made their fortunes in artificial intelligence, including Cognition AI cofounder Steven Hao, six Anthropic cofounders and OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman.

The AI sector has come under intense scrutiny in Congress this week as high-profile tech leaders push for federal safety regulations and a reduced pace of innovation. These warnings follow mounting concerns about existential risks posed by advanced AI systems, echoed in an essay by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and supported by xAI's Musk and OpenAI's Sam Altman.

The list includes 62 women, including 13 who are self-made. Alice Walton remains the richest American woman, while ABC Supply cofounder Diane Hendricks is the richest self-made woman.

Ten listees are younger than 40, up from four in 2025. The oldest is 97-year-old timber billionaire Archie Aldis Emmerson, and the average age is 70.

The top 10 billionaires are

1. Elon Musk, 55, $908 billion (SpaceX and Tesla)
2. Jeff Bezos, 62, $378 billion (Amazon)
3. Larry Page, 53, $278 billion (Google)
4. Michael Dell, 61, $263 billion (Dell Technologies)
5. Sergey Brin, 53, $256 billion (Google)
6. Mark Zuckerberg, 42, $212 billion (Facebook)
7. Larry Ellison, 82, $204 billion (Oracle)
8. Jensen Huang, 63, $199 billion (semiconductors)
9. Steve Ballmer, 70, $156 billion (Microsoft)
10. Warren Buffett, 96, $144 billion (Berkshire Hathaway)