The surprising truth about how many billionaires there are, and what it says about wealth today

The Wall Street Journal He also highlighted some other names, including ABC Supply co-founder Diane Hendricks.

The net worth of these billionaires was about $5.7 trillion in September 2025. About $3.86 trillion of it belongs to the top 100 billionaires. Combined, three billionaires — Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg — have a fortune of more than $1 trillion. Compared to the median household net worth of $192,900, their combined net worth is equivalent to about 5.2 million American households.

Having a significant amount of wealth allows these individuals to influence markets and politics through various ways, including campaign contributions, lobbying, media ownership, investments, and corporate control.

Billionaire Hotspots

Billionaires are spread throughout the United States. According to Altrata data, as reported in The Wall Street JournalThey own more than 3,000 homes and properties across the country. Billionaire-owned companies have been operated in every state except Wyoming and Alaska.

California has the highest concentration of billionaires, with 255 billionaires in the state, which is home to many of the world’s high-growth technology companies as well as the founders of some of the largest technology companies, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Larry Page. California’s GDP is the largest in the United States, giving billionaires a way to build their wealth through investment and innovation.

New money versus old money

The new wealth creation of billionaires depends largely on banking, finance, and technology, especially in the United States. These two industries reported 300 and 110 billionaires, respectively. Another 75 billionaires came from the real estate sector.

Inherited money continues to play a big role in billionaire wealth as well. So, it should come as no surprise that some of America’s richest families were also on the billionaires list. A third of billionaires earned their wealth from generational wealth. Major names such as the Walton family, linked to Walmart, and the Pritzkers family, linked to Hyatt, were included in the list of American billionaires. It also included a member of the Rockefeller family.

How the wealthy responded to the wealthy

Despite their wealth, a large percentage of billionaires — about 1 in 4 (25%) — have donated less than $1 million to charitable causes since 2015.

according to ForbesThe most generous billionaires are:

• Warren Buffett, who donated $62 billion over his lifetime, plus $5.3 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock in June 2024, to several organizations, including the Gates Foundation.
• Bill Gates and Melinda Gates, whose lifetime donations total $47.7 billion, plus $5.2 billion in 2024. Bill Gates also announced that he will give away almost all of his wealth over 20 years, starting in 2025.
• Michael Bloomberg, whose philanthropic focus has been climate change, health and education, with a total of $21.1 billion over his lifetime and $3.7 billion in 2024
• Mackenzie Scott, who has donated $19.25 billion over her lifetime, and more than $2 billion in 2024, with a focus on education, housing and economic equality.
• Marilyn Simmons and her family, who have donated $9.4 billion, plus $3.4 billion in 2024

Bottom line

Although the number of billionaires continues to rise, they represent a small portion of the US population – about 0.00034%. This small percentage owns a great deal of wealth. They live all over the United States, from New York City to Waunakee, Wisconsin.