In a Sea of Female Billionaires, Oprah Winfrey Is But a Minnow
Rihanna did not make this year’s Forbes 400.
Life is good when you’re a Wal-Mart heir.
That’s the takeaway from this year’s Forbes 400, which features 400 of America’s richest people—only 51 of whom, or 13 percent, are female. (That’s up one percent from 2014′s list. Baby steps?)
With a net-worth of $32 billion, Alice Walton, 65, ranks as the highest earning woman on the list, and the 12th highest overall. Though her name may not ring a bell, this should: Her father Sam, who died in 1992, was the founder of Wal-Mart.
Two slots behind Alice is her sister-in-law Christy, 66, whose sizable income of $30.2 billion is also thanks to the discount mega chain. She inherited her billions when her husband John died in an airplane crash in 2005.
It’s a change in fortune for the Waltons: In 2014, Christy was ranked as the sixth wealthiest American, while Alice was ninth. Their cousins Anne Walton Kroenke, 66, and Nancy Walton Laurie, 64, are also on the list this year at #121 and #128 with $4.4 billion and $3.9 billion, respectively.
Other notable, non-Wal-Mart affiliated women on Forbes’s list include Jacqueline Mars—as in, the candy company (#18), Steve Jobs’s widow Alice Walton (#23), blood test pioneer and youngest self-made female billionaire Elizabeth Holmes (#121), and of course, media mogul Oprah Winfrey, coming in at #211 with $3 billion.
Almost makes you feel sorry for poor Opie, doesn’t it?
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