The Richest Person in Every State

Lumber magnate Jimmy Rane, who advertises his company Great Southern Wood Preserving by posing as his alter ego Yella Fella, is Alabama’s wealthiest person. Rane, whose net worth is estimated at $900 million, continues to live in his small hometown of Abbeville.

own real estate development and management company JL Properties, which controls many properties in Anchorage, including the state’s tallest building, the ConocoPhillips Tower. Rubini and Hyde each owns half of the business, giving them a $310 million estimated net worth each.

Arizona’s Ernest Garcia has made his fortune in the automotive business. He owns major used car retailer DriveTime Automotive and is the largest shareholder of online used car selling platform Carvana

Jim Walton — the youngest son of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart — is one of the many heirs to the retail giant’s fortune. He ranks as one of the 20 richest people in the world. Walton lives in Bentonville, the Arkansas home of the largest company in the world by revenue.

Google co-founder Larry Page surpassed fellow tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg to become the richest person in California, with a fortune of $111 billion. As of 2022, he ranked as the sixth wealthiest person in the world. In 2019, Page stepped down as CEO of parent company Alphabet but he is still a board member.

Philip Anschutz has become one of the wealthiest people in the world by investing in several businesses, including oil, railroads, real estate, and entertainment. His Anschutz Entertainment Group owns and operates arenas and stadiums across the globe.

Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world based on assets managed. His net worth of $22 billion makes him one of the 100 wealthiest people in the world. Dalio started the company out of his New York City apartment, but it is now located in Westport, Connecticut.

Delaware is one of just seven states with no billionaire residents. The wealthiest people in the state are siblings Robert Gore and Elizabeth Snyder. The two, who both live in Delaware, owe their fortune to their parents’ company W.L. Gore & Associates, best known for inventing the fabric Gore-Tex. Both Gore and Snyder are worth an estimated $885 million.

Florida’s wealthiest resident is Thomas Peterffy, the former CEO of financial services company Interactive Brokers. Peterffy is best known for contributing to popularizing digital high-speed trading. He stepped down as CEO in 2019 but remained as chairman of the board.

Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus now ranks as Georgia’s richest resident, with an estimated net worth of $8.7 billion. He recently overtook Cox Enterprises heir Jim Kenndy as the state’s wealthiest resident.

Larry Ellison ranks as Hawaii’s richest resident and the eighth richest person in the world. The Oracle cofounder left Silicon Valley in 2020 to live on the island of Lanai. He purchased nearly all of the land on Lanai – almost 90,000 acres – in 2012.

Idaho’s richest person is Frank VanderSloot, the founder and long-time head of consumer products and supplements company Melaleuca. VanderSloot has helmed the company since its start in 1985.

Ken Griffin founded global investment fund Citadel in 1990. With an estimated net worth of $27.2 billion, Griffin is the richest person in Illinois and one of the 100 wealthiest people in the United States. Griffin has donated over $1 billion throughout his life, much of which went to nonprofits in his home of Chicago.

Carl Cook of Bloomington, Indiana, is the CEO of Cook Group, a long-time maker of medical equipment. The company specializes in devices used in minimally-invasive surgery such as stents and filters. Carl inherited control of Cook Group from his parents, who founded the company. With a net worth of $11.1 billion, Cook is the wealthiest person in the state.

With an estimated net worth of $6.9 billion, Harry Stine is the wealthiest person in Iowa. Stine made his fortune in the state’s substantial corn and soybean industries. The Stine Seed Company – originally founded in the 1950s by Stine’s father as Stine Seed Farm – today owns hundreds of patents in soybean and corn genetics and is estimated to do over $1 billion in sales annually. Stine still resides with his family in Adel, where his grandparents first moved in the late 1800s.

Kansas’ Charles Koch, along with his late brother David, made his fortune building and running Koch Industries, which has operations in everything from paper products to chemical manufacturing to oil pipelines. The Koch brothers have been known for their participation in the American political system and for their financial support of conservative candidates.

Tamara Gustavson is the largest shareholder of self storage company Public Storage, which was started by her father, B. Wayne Hughes, in 1972.. She also sits on Public Storage’s board as well as on the board of American Homes 4 Rent, which was also founded by her father. Gustavson lives on her family’s horse breeding farm, Spendthrift Farms, in Lexington, Kentucky.

Gayle Benson became the wealthiest person in Louisiana following the death of her husband, Tom Benson, in 2018. A legal battle with Tom’s children and grandchildren, who claimed he was mentally unfit when he gave her control of his assets, was eventually settled. Benson now owns both of New Orleans’s pro sports teams, the Pelicans and the Saints.

Susan Alfond is the heiress to the Alfond family fortune. Alfond’s father founded the Dexter Shoe Company, which he sold to Warren Buffett for $420 million in Berkshire Hathaway stock in 1993. As Berkshire Hathaway stock has appreciated, the Alfonds have since made billions.

Stephen Bisciotti is the wealthiest resident of Maryland, with an estimated net worth of $5.9 billion. Bisciotti started staffing company Allegis with his cousin in 1983, growing it to the country’s largest workforce service firm. Bisciotti now owns the Baltimore Ravens of the NFL, leading the team to a Super Bowl win in 2013.

With an estimated net worth of $21.2 billion, Abigail Johnson is the wealthiest person in Massachusetts and the tenth wealthiest woman in the world. Johnson is the owner of mutual fund group Fidelity Investments, which her grandfather started. In 2014, she took over as CEO of the firm, which today manages over $2 trillion in assets. Johnson’s siblings and co-heirs to the family fortune, Elizabeth Johnson and Edward Johnson IV, are also billionaires.

Daniel Gilbert’s net worth increased from $6.5 billion in April to $41 billion just four months later following the IPO of Rocket Companies on Aug. 6. Rocket Companies is the parent company of Rocket Mortgage and of Quicken Loans, which Gilbert founded. Quicken Loans is now the largest mortgage lender in the U.S., according to Fortune. Gilbert is also the owner of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers.

Glen Taylor made his fortune by founding Taylor Corp., a printing services company. Though he no longer serves as CEO, Taylor remains chairman of the company. Taylor has purchased ownership stakes in several Minnesota sports teams, including the NBA’s Timberwolves and the MLS franchise Minnesota United.

Brothers James and Thomas Duff inherited their father’s tire business, Southern Tire Mart, in 1983 and turned it into the largest truck tire distributor in the nation. The brothers diversified their interests, funding in 2007 Duff Capital, which acquired several businesses over the years. The billionaire brothers are the richest people in Mississippi, each with a net worth of $1.4 billion.

Cargill heiress Pauline MacMillan Keinath became the wealthiest person in Missouri after real estate mogul and Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke moved his primary residence to Texas. Keinath controls 13% of Cargill, is the world’s largest food company, according to Forbes.

With an estimated net worth of $6.9 billion, Dennis Washington is the wealthiest person in Montana. Through his business, Washington Companies, he owns a diversified group of businesses that span several industries such as shipping, rail transport, and diamond mining. Washington has given over $800 million to the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation, a charitable organization.

One of the most successful investors in history, Warren Buffett is worth an estimated $118 billion. The Oracle of Omaha is not only the wealthiest person in Nebraska, but also the fifth richest person in America. Buffett is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate that partly or wholly owns dozens of companies, including Geico, Duracell, and Kraft Heinz. Buffett was born in Omaha in 1930 and has lived there with his family continuously since 1956.

Miriam Adelson is Nevada’s wealthiest resident following the death of her husband, late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson who was the CEO and chairman of Las Vegas Sands. In early 2022, the company sold the Venetian Resort to Apollo Global Management, Inc. and VICI Properties Inc. for $6.25 billion.

There are no billionaires living in New Hampshire, but with a $720 million net worth, Andrea Reimann-Ciardelli is the state’s wealthiest resident. Reimann-Ciardelli is a descendant of Ludwig Reimann, who in 1828 joined Johann Adam Benckiser as a partner in his chemical company. Now known as JAB Holding Company, the family business has since expanded into consumer goods and today owns such major brands as Coty, Keurig, and Panera Bread. Reimann-Ciardelli sold her JAB stake in 2003.

Hedge fund manager John Overdeck is the richest person in New Jersey with a net worth of more than $6 billion. Overdeck founded Two Sigma Investments, a hedge fund with more than $54 billion under management. The firm largely focuses on quantitative trading, which relies more on the securities and their trending behavior over time, rather than on the underlying companies’ operations.

Mack C. Chase is an oil and gas tycoon who grew up in Artesia, New Mexico, where he still resides today. Chase started his own oil drilling business in 1968. While the Mack Energy Corporation has since expanded its operations to Texas and other parts of New Mexico, the company’s headquarters remain in Artesia. Through the Chase Foundation, Chase has donated millions to Artesia’s schools, students, athletic fields, health care facilities, and the downtown area.

New York is home to dozens of billionaires, and at the top of this group is investor, media mogul, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In 1981, Bloomberg started his investing media company, which also provides trading terminals to businesses and investors. Bloomberg was able to leverage his fame and wealth in the New York area to win a bid for city mayor in 2002 and served for three terms.

Video game developer Tim Sweeney now ranks as North Carolina’s wealthiest resident, supplanting James Goodnight, founder of software company SAS. Sweeney is the CEO and cofounder of Epic Games, best known for its popular “Fortnite” video game. Epic Games also created Unreal Engine, a development kit used by other video game creators.

Gary Tharaldson, the Fargo-based builder and operator of hundreds of hotels across the country through Tharaldson Companies, is the only billionaire in North Dakota. Tharaldson sold 130 of his hotels for $1.2 billion to Goldman Sachs in 2006.

Les Wexner is the founder and CEO of L Brands, a fashion retailer that owns flagship brands such as Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works. In February 2020, Wexner announced he would step down as the CEO and sell a majority stake in L Brands to a private equity firm, but the deal fell through.

With an estimated net worth of $17.2 billion, Harold Hamm is Oklahoma’s wealthiest resident and one of the 100 richest people in the world. Hamm runs oil and gas company Continental Resources. He helped popularize fracking as a method of extracting natural resources.

Phil Knight is Oregon’s wealthiest resident. Knight and his former University of Oregon track coach founded the company that would become footwear and apparel behemoth Nike. Today, Nike is one of the largest employers in the state. Knight is also one of the state’s biggest philanthropists, having given more than $2 billion to several universities.

Pennsylvania’s wealthiest resident is Jeff Yass, cofounder of trading firm Susquehanna International Group. Prior to founding the firm, Yass began amassing his fortune through gambling on poker and horse racing. He is now worth $12 billion.

Providence, Rhode Island, resident Jonathan Nelson is the co-founder and CEO of Providence Equity Partners. The company owns stakes in dozens of companies, largely in media, communications, and information.

Anita Zucker is CEO of the Charleston-based InterTech Group, a chemical manufacturing company. Zucker took over the position after her husband Jerry Zucker, who founded the company, passed away in 2008. In addition to her work, Zucker is also a noted philanthropist, giving millions of dollars to various educational causes throughout her home state of South Carolina.

T. Denny Sanford made much of his fortune with First Premier Bank. Sanford now works as CEO of the bank’s holding company, United National Corporation. Sanford has committed much of his immense wealth to improving the lives of children in and around South Dakota. He has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to children’s hospitals and medical schools in the Midwest.

Thomas Frist Jr. founded Hospital Corporation of America with his father, Thomas Frist Sr., in 1968. Today, the company owns dozens of hospitals in the United States and the U.K. Frist’s net worth increased from $122.4 billion in 2019 to $21.8 billion in 2022.

Everything is bigger in Texas, including the fortunes. Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, recently relocated to Austin. Musk derives his wealth from a host of businesses, including SpaceX, Tesla, and more. Musk’s net worth could be in flux soon. As of July 2022, Musk was attempting to pull out of a proposed $44 billion deal to buy Twitter.

Gail Miller owns the Larry H. Miller Group, which she started with her late husband, Larry. The group owns a wide variety of companies, including car dealerships and theater complexes. In 2020, Miller sold the majority ownership of the NBA’s Utah Jazz for $1.7 billion, while retaining a small stake in the team.

Though John Abele is retired, he still has a small stake in Boston Scientific, a medical device company he co-founded in 1979. Abele was once a billionaire, but he donated much of his wealth, leaving him with $640 million.

Jacqueline Mars, heiress to the candy company Mars, Inc. fortune, is not just the richest person in Virginia, but also one of the wealthiest people in the world. With an estimated net worth of $31.7 billion, Mars ranks among the 50 wealthiest people in the world. Mars, her brother John, and the heirs of their late brother Forrest Jr. own one-third of Mars, Inc. each. Virginia Mars was involved in the company’s operations until 2016, when she stepped down from the board.

Jeff Bezos, founder of e-commerce juggernaut Amazon, is the second wealthiest person in the world. With a current net worth of nearly $171 billion, Bezos is wealthier than fellow Washington resident Bill Gates, who is the fourth richest person in the world. He stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, but still serves as chairman of the board.

West Virginia’s wealthiest resident, Jim Justice II, owes his fortune to coal. He inherited a coal business from his father, and he still owns mines in five states. Justice was elected state governor, running as a Democrat, in 2016. He flipped parties to become a Republican six months after winning. Justice won reelection in 2020.

John Menard, Jr. derives his fortune from the home improvement store bearing his name, Menard’s. The business has over 300 locations around the Midwest. Menard’s net worth increased by more than $5 billion since 2020.

Like the other billionaires in his family, John Mars’s vast fortune stems from the company his grandfather founded, Mars, Inc. The company makes some of the world’s most recognizable candies, including M&Ms, Snickers, and Twix. John and his sister Jacqueline each own a third of the company, and the rest is divided among the four daughters of his late brother Forrest Jr.