Two richest Coloradans rank No. 40 and No. 44 on Forbes 400 list.
It’s just as easy to be friends with rich people as poor people, I’ve been told. I’ll have to take whoever dropped that nugget on me at their word because if you added the net worth of everyone I know, we’d come up with a large pile of lint. My own assets are valued somewhere around that of a peanut, but I digress.
If you’re looking for a new billionaire bff, look no farther than Forbes’ latest list of richest Americans. Five Coloradans have made the Forbes 400, all of them billionaires to boot.
It’s no shock that topping the annual roster is Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. He has managed to garner a whopping $160 billion net worth. He also toppled the reigning king of the golden hill, Bill Gates, who spent 24 years at No. 1. Bezos grabs the honor of being the first person to rank with a fortune of more than $100 billion, according to Forbes.
Our Colorado members of the three-comma club are nothing to sneeze at, either. They may not be Bezos, but really, the guy has more money than most countries, so one should feel bad.
Coming in at No. 40 is investor Philip Anschutz with a net worth of $11.3 billion. Just a few spots back at No. 44 is Charlie Ergen, co-founder and chairman of Dish Network Corp. with a net worth of $10.8 billion. Anschutz dethroned Ergen as Colorado’s richest person back in May.
These two are followed by No. 67 media mogul John Malone with a net worth of $7.5 billion; No. 179, the cheese mogul who makes some serious cheese, James Leprino with a net worth of $4 billion; and rounding out the list, Pat Stryker, No. 354, heir to a medical device maker with a net worth of $2.3 billion.
“The minimum net worth to join this exclusive club hit an all-time high of $2.1 billion while the average net worth for a Forbes 400 member rose half a billion to a record $7.2 billion. At these lofty highs, more than a third of the nation’s billionaires, a record 204, weren't wealthy enough to crack the club,” shared Forbes.
Those poor billionaires who were left off the list. They'll just have to settle for those daily consolation dives Scrooge McDuck-style into their piles of gold.
Life is rough.
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