Who are the richest Americans today? Forbes drops 2026 ranking

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez Bezos, attend the men’s singles final match of the U.S. Open on Sept. 13 at Flushing Meadows, N.Y.

In America, the rich are getting richer, according to Forbes’ new list of the country’s top 400 wealthiest people.

Wealth gaps have widened since the 1980s, but the US stands out. Experts say weaker tax and social policies make mobility harder than ever.

In America, the rich are getting richer, according to Forbes’ new list of the country’s top 400 wealthiest people.

The wealth gap among the ultra-rich is widening, so much so that 590 American billionaires were “too poor” to make the annual Forbes 400 List, which calculated that everyone who made the cut is worth a combined $8 trillion.

According to Forbes, the combined net worths of the top 20 on its list account for 50% of the total, which is up $970 billion from last year. Despite the minimum net worth “soaring to an unprecedented $4.4 billion,” 34 newcomers still made the cut.

Forbes formed its 2026 list of the 400 richest Americans using estimates of each person’s wealth as of Sept. 4, according to the magazine.

From Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg, the usual suspects round out the top 10, with the South African-born businessman earning the No. 1 spot for the fifth year in a row.

Musk, the Tesla CEO and former leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, broke the $900 billion mark on the list this year, the first person to do so. He also leads the magazine’s global real-time billionaires list.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez Bezos, attend the men’s singles final match of the U.S. Open on Sept. 13 at Flushing Meadows, N.Y.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos came in second place, short by more than $500 billion behind Musk.