The Wealthiest People in Georgia

Forbes has put out their annual tally of the wealthiest people in America, and some Georgia billionaires made the cut. The roster is part of the The Forbes 400, an annual ranking of America's wealthiest residents. You probably won't be super surprised by the names on here, but you might not recognize a few of the wealthiest residents in the state. In general, though, it's the same mega names that top the Forbes 400 each year.

According to Forbes, the 400 richest billionaires in America are worth $5.4 trillion, which is $1 trillion more than last year. What's more, a dozen of the richest billionaires are worth $100 billion or more, which is a record since Forbes has been doing this study. To make the special club, the minimum net worth of $3.3 billion was required, which is $400 million more than Forbes required in 2023. Of the 400, 23 are new and on the list for the first time ever, "having grown their fortunes in everything from mundane plastic pipes to cutting-edge artificial intelligence." Forbes also notes that "the wealthiest people in America have never been wealthier."

Before we get to our state, let's look at the wealthiest person in the world. According to Forbes, it's Elon Musk, who is worth more than $244 billion. He source of income, according to Forbes, is Tesla and SpaceX. "Elon Musk cofounded seven companies, including electric car maker Tesla, rocket producer SpaceX and artificial intelligence startup xAI," they state. It's not surprising to see Musk on the tally, although I personally didn't know he'd be the richest person in the entire United States. No. 2 on the tally is Jeff Bezos, No. 3 is Mark Zuckerberg and No. 4 is Larry Ellison and No. 5 is Warren Buffet.

As for the Georgia billionaires, three members of the Cathy family are the richest people in Georgia: Bubba Cathy, Dan Cathy and Ambassador Trudy Cathy White, all of Chick-fil-A. They're worth an estimated $10.6 billion. Who knew there was so much money in chicken, right? Other billionaires from Georgia who made the cut include Arthur Blank, John Brown, Gary Rollins and family, Jim Kennedy, Dan Kurzius, Ben Chestnut and Neal Aronson. In total, 10 billionaires from Georgia made it into Forbes' annual tally. Chances are, you recognize those Georgia names, and they'll probably be on here next year, too.