The 43d edition of the annual Forbes 400 list was released today, and for the Las Vegas area it was good news if one likes proximity to conspicuous consumption. The number of local swells rose from four to six. No one fell off (like casino magnate Phil Ruffin did last year). This is fewer than the nine who graced the famous list of America’s richest eight years ago in 2016, the year I became New To Las Vegas. But Sin City this year at least has more than its cross-state rival of Reno, the self-styled “Biggest Little City in the World” with four entries each year.
Here’s the Las Vegas-area contingent:
–Widow Miriam Adelson, 78, ranked No. 32 with an inherited casino family fortune valued at $29.9 billion, down from $32.8 billion. She’s the only Nevada entrant whose net worth declined (by more than the individual GDP of 26 countries!)
–Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie, 73, ranked No. 69 with $12.7 billion, up from $9.3 billion.
–Panda Express husband-and-wife owners Andrew Cherng, 77, and Peggy Cherng, 76, both ranked No. 359 with $3.7 billion each, or $7.4 billion for the household, up from $6.2 billion.
–Casino owner brothers Frank Fertitta III, 62, and Lorenzo Fertitta, 55, both ranked No. 388 with $3.4 billion each. They rejoined the Forbes 400 this year but have been on past lists.
As for the folks up north:
–Computer software man David Duffield, 84, ranked No. 55 with $14.3 billion, up from $13.7 billion.
–Computer software man Jay Chaudhry, 65, ranked No. 84 at $11.4 billion, up from $9.2 billion.
–Wife-and-husband aerospace types Eren Ozmen and Fatih Ozmen, both 66, but with different net worths: she, No. 335 at $4 billion, up from $3.4 billion; he No. 347 at $3.8 billion, up from $3.3 billion.
No. 1 remains Elon Musk at $244.8 billion. But that’s a whopping $6.2 billion less than last year, thanks in large part to his stewardship of the social media platform X.
Meanwhile, Donald J. Trump, who lied his way onto the first Forbes 400 list in 1982 by falsely claiming he owned half of his father’s real estate business (at the time he owned none), is back on at No. 319, valued at $4.3 billion. Trump fell off last year for the first time in a quarter-century, but qualifies this year by virtue of his majority holding in the company owning the Truth Social platform. Trump shares ownership with fallen Forbes 400 member Phil Ruffin in Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, Nevada’s tallest non-casino building.
It’s getting harder and harder to be a big-time tycoon. The cutoff for this year’s Forbes 400 list–No. 400–is $3.3 billion, up from $2.9 billion last year. Forbes reports that for the first time there are more U.S. billies’ off the list–415–than on.
Nevada now has one Forbes 400 member for every 290,000 residents. That’s a ratio nearly three times better than the national average of one for ever 863,000 residents. But then there’s the fact that Nevada currently has the country’s highest unemployment rate, at 5.5%. In Nevada there are lessons at both ends.