Who Are America’s Youngest Billionaires in 2022?
4 min readBeing young and rich isn’t easy anymore. Many young billionaires dropped off the wealth rankings in 2022 after their fortunes soared last year due to a post-pandemic surge in markets.
Rising inflation and recession fears have rocked sectors ranging from technology to used car sales.
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The Forbes 400 list for 2022 includes ten billionaires under the age of 40. Last year there were 15. One of them left the group due to old age. It’s Lynsey Snyder, In-N-Out Burger heiress with an estimated net worth of $4.2 billion. She turns 40 in May.
All others listed below the $2.7 billion cut-off point — or out of the billionaire ranks altogether — amid wild market fluctuations.
The cryptocurrency crash has reduced the wealth of crypto billionaires by tens of billions of dollars. That includes Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, 34, whose net worth has fallen to $1 billion from an estimated $3.5 billion last year.
Baiju Bhatt, 37, co-founder of investment app Robinhood, lost his billionaire status in January when the company’s shares fell 60% from their 2021 IPO price; Budd debuted on the Forbes 400 last year with a net worth of $2.9 billion.
RJ Scaringe, founder and CEO of Rivian Automotive, valued at $3.4 billion last year, is out of the ten-figure club after sharp price increases in the electric vehicle maker triggered a stock selloff. Quotations have fallen nearly 60% since the November IPO.
Two others under the age of 40 last year, Pinterest co-founder and CEO Ben Silberman and Ernest Garcia III, co-founder and CEO of online car retailer Carvana, dropped out of the Forbes 400 this year, but both would have left. The group, however, turned 40 last year.
This year only one new youth made his debut in the list. Gary Wang, 29, is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Bahamas-based FTX, a leading exchange for buying cryptocurrency derivatives, which he launched in 2019 with billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. The youngest in the list.
10 People Under 40 from the 2022 Forbes 400, from oldest to youngest:
10. Scott Duncan
- Age: 39
- Net worth: $6.9 billion
- Rating: 119
- Source of Wealth: Oil Pipelines
Duncan became a billionaire at age 27 when his father, Texas oil magnate Don Duncan, died in 2010. He and his three older brothers became partners in Enterprise Products Partners, the Houston-based pipeline empire started by their father in 1968. Only Duncan’s sister. , Randa Williams, is actively involved in the organization.
9. Brian Armstrong
- Age: 39
- Net worth: $2.7 billion
- Rating: 388
- Source of Wealth: Cryptocurrency
The Coinbase co-founder and CEO lost nearly $9 billion last year as his exchange’s market capitalization plummeted 75% — from about $60 billion to $15 billion. Armstrong, a former software engineer at Airbnb, owns about 19% of the cryptocurrency exchange he started in 2012 at the age of 29.
8. Nathan Blecharczyk
- Age: 39
- Net worth: $7.7 billion
- Rating: 93
- Source of wealth: Airbnb
Blecharczyk is one of Airbnb’s three co-founders under the age of 40. He serves as the strategy director of the vacation rental company and head of Airbnb China. Amid a roller coaster ride for Airbnb shares, which have fallen nearly 30% over the past year, Blecharczyk has sold more than $480 million worth of stock, or about 3.5% of the stock.
7. Mark Zuckerberg
- Age: 38
- Net worth: $57.7 billion
- Rating: 11
- Source of Wealth: Facebook
He’s coming off the Forbes 400 Richest Under 40 list, and Meta’s co-founder and CEO is nearly $80 billion poorer than last year, meaning he’s lost more than half of his income. Meta shares are down about 60% year-to-date, driven by a decline in the social media platform’s users and initial hurdles to its expansion into the so-called “metaverse.”
6. Dustin Moskowitz
- Age: 38
- Net worth: $8.1 billion
- Rating: 83
- Source of Wealth: Facebook
More than half of Facebook co-founder Moskovitz’s wealth comes from an estimated 2% stake in Meta Platforms; Another part is connected to Asana, the workflow software company he founded after leaving Facebook. Between Meta’s 60% drop and Asana’s 80% drop, Moskovitz is about $16 billion poorer this year.
5. Lucas Walton
- Age: 36
- Net worth: $20.5 billion
- Rating: 29
- Source of Wealth: Walmart
The grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton quietly inherited a fortune — including an estimated 4% stake in his family’s mega-retailer — when he died in a 2005 plane crash. Instead of working for the family business, the Chicago billionaire pours his wealth into supporting social and environmental causes through his investment and philanthropic platform, Builders Vision.
4. Bobby Murphy
- Age: 34
- Net worth: $2.7 billion
- Rating: 388
- Source of wealth: Snapchat
3. Evan Spiegel
- Age: 32
- Net worth: $2.8 billion
- Rating: 380
- Source of wealth: Snapchat
Snapchat co-founders Spiegel and Murphy have lost 80% of their wealth in the past year, mirroring the plunge in shares of their social media company. Apple’s privacy changes fueled broader industry struggles, which cut into Snap’s ad revenue. In August, CEO Spiegel announced that the company would lay off 20% of its employees and discontinue at least six products.
2. Sam Bankman-Fried
- Age: 30
- Net worth: $17.2 billion
- Rating: 41
- Source of Wealth: Cryptocurrency Exchange
Bankman-Fried owns half of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. Although he has lost more than $5 billion since last year, according to Forbes estimates, he has outperformed many in the cryptocurrency industry — and has made $750 million in loans to other cryptocurrency companies. This year.
1. Gary Wang
- Age: 29
- Net worth: $4.6 billion
- Rating: 227
- Source of Wealth: Cryptocurrency Exchange
Wang, a former software engineer at Google, introduced FTX to Bankman-Fried, who was a college roommate at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He is more sensible than his partner.
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