A former Airbnb engineer, he led Coinbase through its 2021 IPO, briefly hitting a peak market capitalization of more than $100 billion. Just ask the members of The Forbes 400 ranking of America’s wealthiest people, who are 70 years old on average. Nearly two dozen are in their 90s and one, Dole Food Company’s David Murdock, is 101. But a lucky few have managed to amass at least $3.3 billion, the minimum net worth required to make the list, at a young age. Nineteen until July, and two months younger than Clemente Del Vecchio, she is the world’s youngest billionaire. Like her sister Dora, she owns 3.1% of WEG and has pulled in millions from dividends.
His father was a small town scrapyard owner who started out renovating ex-Soviet equipment at the end of the Cold War. He transformed the business into the $3.2 billion (2023 revenue) defense producer Czechoslovak Group, which Strnad has since taken over as owner and top 10 youngest billionaires in the world CEO. In his spare time, Strnad collects art, sports cars and historic vehicles. Spiegel dropped out of Stanford to start Snapchat with his fraternity brothers Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown in 2011 and became a billionaire by the age of 25. Now he and Murphy, 35, together own about a quarter of publicly traded Snap Inc., which generated $4.6 billion in revenue last year.
While self-made billionaires like Ben Francis are celebrated for their entrepreneurial spirit, they represent a minority in the billionaire population. The prevalence of inherited wealth in the ranks of young billionaires underscores how family legacies and privilege play a major role in attaining such extraordinary financial milestones. The world’s youngest billionaire is only 19, hailing from Brazil and receiving her wealth from her father’s and grandfather’s personal finance prowess. Lukas Walton is wealthy due to inheritance — he is the grandson of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart. Rather than running the family business, Walton is primarily involved in philanthropy.
The company uses AI to advise small- and medium-scale enterprises with aging owners who have no one lined up to take over. He became a billionaire last April, when M&A Research Institute Holdings’ share price skyrocketed thanks to spiking revenues and a surge of M&A activity in Japan. Nearly all of these 25 who made the ranks are richer than last year.
So, the next time you hear about a “billionaire kid,” remember the stories behind the numbers. In this exclusive club of young wealth, life is undoubtedly different. Still, pursuing happiness, fulfilment, and making a mark on the world remains a universal human experience, regardless of the size of your trust fund. The Changzhou-based company manufactures solar cells, silicon wafers, power plant equipment and related products. They make feed for fish, livestock and poultry, and its energy unit is the world’s largest manufacturer of crystalline silicon solar cells.
Guenther transferred 50 percent of his ownership in dm to Kevin David in 2017. Neither Kevin David nor his father has actively participated in dm’s operational activities and is known for maintaining a private image. The children of Chinese billionaires are inheriting wealth and businesses as their country, and the world’s second-largest economy, faces a more challenging economic landscape. Most of the world’s youngest billionaires are heirs to their fortunes, rather than self-made people.
Despite owning nearly one-third of his current company, Facebook is simply so huge that his pittance of shares in the tech giant are extremely valuable. Brian Armstrong serves as the CEO of Coinbase, the largest US-based cryptocurrency trading firm. He has amassed vast wealth due to his stake in the company — he owns nearly one-fifth of Coinbase’s shares.
Moskovitz helped launch Facebook with then-roommate Zuckerberg, who is just eight days older. Besides a stake in Facebook-parent company Meta, he also owns shares of Asana, the workflow software company he started after leaving Facebook in 2008. Garcia cofounded Carvana, an ecommerce platform for buying and selling used cars, in 2012 as a subsidiary of his father’s used car dealer DriveTime. The duo spun Carvana out of DriveTime in a 2017 IPO that raised $225 million. Garcia III is CEO; Garcia II is still the largest shareholder in his son’s company. The self-taught software engineer made his first fortune when he launched the startup Oculus VR, selling a virtual reality headset he’d made at age 16, then cashed out to Facebook in 2014 in a $2 billion deal.
Exporting to over 50 countries, SalMar is the world’s second largest salmon farmer. The company says it produces enough to feed every Norwegian a nightly fish dinner. Though Bobby Murphy serves as chief technology officer at Snap, he built wealth as a cofounder and stakeholder of the social media company he now helps to run. Snap shares have risen dramatically since it first went public in 2017. Like the heirs to the Walton family fortune, Scott Duncan is wealthy from a vast inheritance.
At 28, Spiegel has amassed equity of $4.1 billion, which places him at number 527 on Forbes’ billionaire ranking. This article was amended on 3 April 2024 to remove a mistaken reference to Charles Koch’s younger brother David, who died in 2019. For the past 18+ years, Kathryn has highlighted the humanity in personal finance by shaping stories that identify the opportunities and obstacles in managing a person’s finances. All the same, she’ll jump on other equally important topics if needed. Kathryn graduated with a degree in Journalism and lives in Duluth, Minnesota. Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplinger’s advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and much more.
The Jiaxing-based company also manufactures standard glass and reported revenue of 15.5 billion yuan in 2022. Her father founded the group, which produces one-fifth of the world’s solar glass. They have 30 food and beverage production bases across mainland China. Geely, one of China’s top car makers, was founded by Li’s father.
Unlike his half-brother Leonardo, he has no role in EssilorLuxottica. He was only 19 when his father gifted him nearly half of the fish farming behemoth SalMar. Eleven years later, his dad continues to operate the company while Gustav focuses on real estate and tech startup investments. SalMar’s share price has soared 800% over the past decade, inflating the younger Witzøe’s wealth along with it. He’s now Norway’s fifth-richest person and its biggest taxpayer, having given the government NOK 292.4 million—the equivalent of about $29.6 million—in 2022.
A substantial portion of their stakes has been passed down through their late father, Kim Jung-ju. Kim Jung-ju founded Nexon in 1994 and passed away at 54 in February 2022. Neither Jung-youn nor her sister has been actively engaged in Nexon’s day-to-day operations, and they maintain a low public profile. As the heiress to WEG, one of the region’s leading electrical motors manufacturers, Livia’s wealth comes from a well-established family legacy in the industry. Despite her remarkable fortune, Livia remains focused on her studies as a university student, showing that even teenage billionaires can be committed to balancing education with their impressive financial legacies. Similarly to Bobby Murphy, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel became wealthy as a cofounder and stakeholder of the company behind social media goliath Snapchat.
