Black Billionaires in America 2020
Many American businesses had humble beginnings but have grown into some of the biggest and most successful companies in the world. Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are household names, and their founders and CEOs are now among the richest people on the planet. The U.S. is home to the largest number of billionaires in the world at almost 800, according to a 2020 report by Wealth-X. Of those, there are just a handful who are Black.
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According to Forbes, there are seven Black American billionaires: David Steward, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Robert F. Smith and Tyler Perry.
Perry, the entertainer and movie studio founder, is America's newest Black billionaire, with Forbes estimating his net worth at $1 billion in September 2020. Smith is the richest Black man in America, with a net worth of $5 billion from his private equity firm, Vista Equity Partners.
Jay-Z is worth $1 billion, while West is worth about $1.26 billion, according to Forbes’ estimates. Oprah is worth $2.5 billion, former NBA superstar Jordan is worth $2.5 billion and Steward, founder of IT provider World Wide Technology, is worth $3.5 billion.
About 1% of America’s billionaires are Black, despite Black people making up more than 13% of the U.S. population. The lack of diversity among America’s uber-rich is just one illustration of the wealth gap that exists between Black and white Americans. This gap is just one fact about economic inequality in the U.S. that every American should know about.
