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The Walton Family (WMT) Is Wealthier Than Elon Musk (TSLA), but Not by Very Much

Austin Smith

Published: December 20, 2024 12:35 pm

24/7 Wall St. Key Points:

• Driven by Walmart’s outstanding stock performance (+80% YTD), the Walton family now ranks as the richest family worldwide with a combined wealth of $435 billion.
• Walmart’s e-commerce gained 27% in the most recent quarter, in hybrid shopping options like curbside pickup.
• Despite earlier projections of Amazon’s total disruption, Walmart’s distinctive logistics—90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a store—helps it to be a major player in retail.
• After an incredible year, many investors are looking at 4% (or better) yields in savings accounts to keep their money safe when volatility returns.
• See our top pick for the best high-yield savings account today. (Sponsor)

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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Douglas McIntyre: Blumberg announced today that the Walton family is the richest family in the world, ahead of any of the people, families in Arabia queen and king, all those people. It’ll fluctuate some because of Walmart stock, but it’s about $435 billion, and that means it’s about the same as Elon Musk’s.

[00:00:24] Lee Jackson: It’s a little more than Musk.

[00:00:26] Douglas McIntyre: You’ve got Elon Musk as an individual person, and then you’ve got the Walton family.

[00:00:31] Douglas McIntyre: So basically the best way to look at this is these are all the descendants of Sam, Sam Walton,

[00:00:36] Douglas McIntyre: who started

[00:00:37] Lee Jackson: Walmart.

[00:00:37] Douglas McIntyre: They still own 46 percent of the stock the, the Waltons themselves aren’t on the board anymore. They’re. They’re older. The husband of one of the granddaughters is now chairman of the board. there are a few interesting things here. I would start by this, and I love this contrast. Musk, richest guy, self made, right? To me, he’s like Sam Walton who died 1992.

[00:01:06] Douglas McIntyre: Bootstrap completely from the ground up guy came from nowhere. The Waltons strictly inherited. None of them did a thing, not a thing to have this

[00:01:17] Lee Jackson: money.

[00:01:17] Lee Jackson: Nope.

[00:01:18] Douglas McIntyre: So figure, I think there are four of them, each one has a hundred billion dollars, but it tells you a lot about America. Doesn’t it? You’ve got this group of entrepreneurs. And if you look at the Forbes wealthy lists, almost all of those people were entrepreneurs near the top of that list.

[00:01:38] Lee Jackson: Yeah. Right. Right. Sure.

[00:01:39] Douglas McIntyre: It’s Musk, the guys who founded Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG), Warren Buffett, you know, who started Berkshire Hathaway decades ago

[00:01:46] Lee Jackson: He does. Yeah. Tech guys, Larry Ellison.

[00:01:50] Douglas McIntyre: But here’s my observation. Their, their wealth went up this year over $50 billion. And it’s because Walmart stock is up. Almost 80 percent this year,

[00:02:03] Lee Jackson: Yeah. It’s had a good year.

[00:02:04] Douglas McIntyre: This year. And Amazon is all is up 50%, five oh, and the market’s up 26. So it’s even outperforming what people thought going to be the retailer of the future.

[00:02:19] Douglas McIntyre: You remember, go back 10 years. Everybody said amazon is going to put everybody out of business, including

[00:02:24] Lee Jackson: Brick and mortar. We’ll be gone. Yeah.

[00:02:26] Lee Jackson: Guess

[00:02:26] Douglas McIntyre: what? Walmart did several things. one, they started a big e commerce business and they said their e commerce business grew 27% in the last recorded quarter. Other thing is is that they’ve, they’ve started to use bricks and mortar to their advantage. They said, the biggest part of their growth in the last quarter was people Where you get in touch with Walmart. They have people in the store who put together your order. I’ve watched them

[00:02:55] Douglas McIntyre: They go around the they, they basically do your shopping for you.

[00:03:01] Lee Jackson: Sam’s club does the same thing. Right. Right.

[00:03:05] Douglas McIntyre: There’s a place that you park. You let them know you’re there. They bring it out. See, Amazon can’t do that. And that’s the Walton, Sam Walton was long dead, but the Walmart management has figured out a way to leverage. Being physical stores. Walmart says this 90 percent of the U S population is within 10 miles of a Walmart. Now that’s their claim, not mine, but I’m why say it if it isn’t

[00:03:35] Douglas McIntyre: true

[00:03:35] Lee Jackson: I believe that I live within 10 miles of two of them,

[00:03:38] Douglas McIntyre: Right. And they are, there are 4, 600 Walmarts in the United States. They’re the largest employer in the country. 1. 6 million people.

[00:03:48] Douglas McIntyre: They’re the largest company in the United States and the Fortune 500. Interestingly enough, Amazon is second. Sort of the headline to this is that the Waltons are the richest family in the world.

[00:03:59] Douglas McIntyre: They have 430 or so billion, the same as Elon Musk, roughly, and one self made and the other didn’t, the other group didn’t do a thing. They just, they just waited

[00:04:12] Lee Jackson: You know, you know what they used to call that back in the day? That was the lucky sperm club. And, you know, the, the, the welders aren’t stupid. They went in and bought a huge chunk of the Kansas City Chiefs. Right. When the owner guy sold his managing piece, the hunts sold a big chunk, and

[00:04:30] Lee Jackson: I think, I think they bought a big chunk of that,

[00:04:33] Douglas McIntyre: Yeah. Well, listen, they’re at this point, they can buy a big chunk of, they can

[00:04:37] Lee Jackson: just about anything, right.

[00:04:39] Douglas McIntyre: By the big chunk of, they may be able to buy a bigger chunk of Amazon, the Bezos sounds.

[00:04:45] Douglas McIntyre: Anyway,

[00:04:45] Lee Jackson: The odd irony is Bezos threw in the towel and bought Whole Foods, which is break, order and break stores.

[00:04:55] Douglas McIntyre: So anyway, that’s the story. The Walmarts now the Walton’s of Walmart are now the, richest family in the world. They, none of the

[00:05:03] Lee Jackson: Yeah,

[00:05:04] Douglas McIntyre: None of the Arabs are on there. They’re on the list, but they’re further down so