Forbes recently published its annual list of the 400 richest Americans, with Bill Gates leading it for the 23rd consecutive year, trailed by Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN CEO Jeff Bezos and Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK-A) Warren Buffett.
What was unexpected to many was the number of immigrants that made it to the list. More than 40 out of these 400 billionaires were born outside of the United States.
These 42 immigrant billionaires came from 21 different countries and have amassed a combined net worth of $250 billion, according to Forbes’ calculations. Among them are Tesla Motors Inc TSLA’s South African founder Elon Musk and Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG’s Russian co-founder Sergey Brin.
Source: Forbes
Six of these immigrants came from Israel, five from India, four from Hungary and another four from Taiwan.
Other immigrants include legendary Hungarian investor George Soros, and Ukranian businessman Len Blavatnik.
Interestingly, a recent report from the Kauffman Foundation said “immigrants are twice as likely to become entrepreneurs as native-born Americans… The risk-taking that defines an immigrant’s experience in starting anew in a country often continues to benefit immigrant entrepreneurs as they channel a healthy appetite for risk in a way that leads to new business ideas.”
Below is a full list of the immigrant billionaires that made it to the 2016 Forbes 400 list.
Name |
Net Worth |
Country Of Origin |
Year Immigrated |
Sergey Brin |
$37.5 billion |
Russia |
1979 |
George Soros |
$24.9 billion |
Hungary |
1956 |
Len Blavatnik |
$18.2 billion |
Ukraine |
1978 |
Thomas Peterffy |
$12.6 billion |
Hungary |
1965 |
Elon Musk |
$11.6 billion |
South Africa |
1990s |
Rupert Murdoch |
$11.1 billion |
Australia |
1985 |
Patrick Soon-Shiong |
$9.2 billion |
South Africa |
1980 |
Jan Koum |
$8.8 billion |
Ukraine |
1992 |
Pierre Omidyar |
$8.1 billion |
France |
1973 |
Micky Arison |
$7.2 billion |
Israel |
1950s |
Shahid Khan |
$6.9 billion |
Pakistan |
1967 |
John Tu |
$5.3 billion |
China |
1971 |
David Sun |
$5.3 billion |
Taiwan |
1977 |
Jeffrey Skoll |
$4.1 billion |
Canada |
1993 |
Igor Olenicoff |
$3.7 billion |
Russia |
1957 |
Isaac Perlmutter |
$3.6 billion |
Israel |
1960s |
Dagmar Dolby & |
$3.5 billion |
Germany |
1976 |
Steven Udvar-Hazy |
$3.5 billion |
Hungary |
1958 |
Roger Wang |
$3.4 billion |
China |
1970 |
John Catsimatidis |
$3.3 billion |
Greece |
1949 |
Tom Gores |
$3.3 billion |
Israel |
1968 |
Kieu Hoang |
$3.1 billion |
Vietnam |
1975 |
Romesh T. Wadhwani |
$3 billion |
India |
1969 |
Do Won & Jin Sook |
$3 billion |
South Korea |
1981 |
Michael Moritz |
$3 billion |
United Kingdom |
1976 |
Andrew & Peggy |
$2.9 billion |
China, Burma |
1966, 1967 |
Haim Saban |
$2.9 billion |
Israel |
1983 |
Jorge Perez |
$2.8 billion |
Argentina |
1960s |
Mortimer Zuckerman |
$2.7 billion |
Canada |
1977 |
Peter Thiel |
$2.7 billion |
Germany |
1968 |
Douglas Leone |
$2.7 billion |
Italy |
1968 |
Min Kao |
$2.7 billion |
Taiwan |
1970s |
C. Dean Metropoulos |
$2.5 billion |
Greece |
1956 |
Bharat & Neerja Sethi |
$2.5 billion |
Kenya, India |
1976, 1978 |
Noam Gottesman |
$2.3 billion |
Israel |
1960s |
Rakesh Gangwal |
$2.2 billion |
India |
1970s |
Jerry Yang |
$2.2 billion |
Taiwan |
1978 |
John Kapoor |
$2.1 billion |
India |
1964 |
Alec Gores |
$2.1 billion |
Israel |
1968 |
Kavitark Ram Shriram |
$1.9 billion |
India |
1970s |
Charles Simonyi |
$1.8 billion |
Hungary |
1967 |
Jen-Hsun Huang |
$1.7 billion |
Taiwan |
1973 |
Source: Forbes
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