Self-made billionaire: 67% of the world’s billionaires built their own fortune

Two-thirds of the world’s billionaires are self-made: Forbes classifies 2,291 of the 3,401 people on its real-time list, or 67%, as having built their fortunes rather than inherited them. The richest self-made billionaire is Elon Musk at $902.2 billion on 12 November 2026. Among women the share is lower, with 122 of 481 on Forbes’ annual list, about 25%, classed as self-made. 12

What does self-made billionaire mean?

Forbes scores each billionaire from 1 to 10 on how much of their wealth they created themselves, and a score of 6 or higher counts as self-made. A founder who built a company from nothing scores high, an heir who inherited a stake scores low, and someone who grew an inherited business many times over lands in between. The count therefore depends on Forbes’ judgement, and it can change when it reviews a fortune. 2

The richest self-made billionaires in the world

Name	How the fortune was built	Net worth, 12 Nov 2026
Elon Musk	Founder of SpaceX, early backer and CEO of Tesla	$902.2 billion
Jeff Bezos	Founder of Amazon	$387.1 billion
Larry Page and Sergey Brin	Co-founders of Google	$248.7 billion and $229.0 billion
Michael Dell	Founder of Dell Technologies	$220.4 billion
Mark Zuckerberg	Co-founder of Facebook, now Meta	$214.2 billion
Larry Ellison	Co-founder of Oracle	$168.0 billion
Warren Buffett	Investor, built Berkshire Hathaway	$167.7 billion
Amancio Ortega	Founder of Zara owner Inditex	$151.6 billion
Jensen Huang	Co-founder of Nvidia	$143.4 billion

Figures are Forbes’ real-time estimates on 12 November 2026, from BillionaireTracker. All nine built their companies themselves; the table leaves out heirs and people whose classification we have not verified. 1

Who are the biggest heirs?

Inherited fortunes cluster in a few families. The Waltons of Walmart appear four times in the top 40: Rob Walton ($148.6 billion), Jim Walton ($145.4 billion), Alice Walton ($134.8 billion) and Lukas Walton ($49.8 billion). The Mars family, the Kochs and L’Oréal’s Françoise Bettencourt Meyers also rank among the richest, as covered in our list of the top 50 richest people in the world. 1

Self-made women billionaires

Forbes counted 122 self-made women among 481 female billionaires, up from 113 a year earlier. The richest is Rafaela Aponte-Diamant, co-founder of shipping group MSC, at $43.9 billion. In the United States a record 43 women are self-made, with a combined $166.3 billion, against about 700 self-made American men worth $6.7 trillion, according to Forbes data compiled by Imagine If. See our guide to women billionaires. 3

Self-made billionaires in India

Many of India’s newest billionaires built their fortunes in technology and finance. Zerodha’s Nithin Kamath, worth about $4.7 billion on Forbes’ tracker, started the broker in 2010 and has never raised outside capital; read our report on who owns Zerodha. Shiv Nadar built HCLTech and is worth $30.9 billion, about ₹2.9 lakh crore at ₹94 to the dollar. 1

Which industries make self-made billionaires?

Finance and investments produce more billionaires than any other industry, with 517, and technology produces the biggest fortunes. Of the ten richest people, eight made their money in tech. Our list of tech billionaires ranks them. 1

What happens next

The share of self-made billionaires has stayed near two-thirds as AI and finance create new fortunes while family wealth passes down. Forbes updates its classifications each March, and we refresh our rankings as its numbers change. For the full overview, see our guide to who is richest.

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