Admission to The Forbes 400 got a little pricier this year. The minimum net worth to rank among America’s 400 wealthiest people climbed to a record-tying $2.9 billion, up $200 million from 2022. The higher bar helped knock 24 underperforming members of last year’s list out of the ranks.
Nearly all of these 24 drop-offs are poorer than they were a year ago—some to the tune of billions, or even tens of billions, of dollars. In fact, half of the combined $43 billion lost by this group comes from just two people: Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang. The cofounders of crypto trading firm Alameda Research and crypto exchange FTX flamed out last fall, when their empire crumbled and they were charged with wire fraud, money laundering and campaign finance charges. Wang, who pleaded guilty to several charges in December, is now cooperating with prosecutors against Bankman-Fried, who has denied the allegations. Bankman-Fried was worth an estimated $17.2 billion on the 2022 Forbes 400 list, published just before their house of cards collapsed, and Wang was worth an estimated $4.6 billion. Now both are likely worth much closer to zero than three commas.
They aren’t the only notable names to drop from The Forbes 400 this year. Donald Trump, who has held a spot on the list for much of the past three decades, has had an off-and-on couple of years since leaving the White House. He fell from the ranking in 2021, only to return last year as investors remained bullish about his social media platform, Truth Social. That enthusiasm is dying down, and the former president’s office property portfolio is struggling too, knocking Trump’s fortune down 19%, from $3.2 billion last year to an estimated $2.6 billion today—$300 million below the cutoff.
Other notables include David Baszucki ($2 billion), founder and CEO of social gaming platform Roblox; early Facebook president and philanthropist Sean Parker ($2.8 billion) and Snapchat cofounders Evan Spiegel ($2.6 billion) and Bobby Murphy ($2.2 billion). The latter two cofounded the company when they were fraternity brothers at Stanford University. They first climbed into the ranks in 2015 at ages 25 and 27, respectively, and for years ranked among the youngest members of The Forbes 400.
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