Mo’ money

4 Austin billionaires join Elon Musk on Forbes' list of the world's richest

In the battle of the world’s billionaires, newly minted Texan Elon Musk come outs on top.

Forbes magazine’s new ranking of the world’s richest people puts Musk at No. 1, with a net worth of $219 billion. That’s up from $151 billion in 2021, $24.6 billion in 2020, $22.3 billion in 2019, and $19.9 billion in 2018.

CEO of Austin-based vehicle manufacturer Tesla and leader of a host of other businesses, Musk was ranked second on Forbes’ 2021 list. He sat behind Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose net worth in 2021 was pegged at $177 million. This year, Forbes estimates Bezos’ net worth is $171 billion.

Last month, Musk questioned the notion that he’s the richest person in the world. Rather, he believes a certain world leader holds that title.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, currently engaged in a bloody war against neighboring Ukraine, “is significantly richer than me,” Musk recently told an interviewer. Putin is said to control vast “ill-gotten gains,” but no one has been able to assign a dollar amount to his riches.

Musk confirmed in 2020 that he had relocated from California to Texas, but it’s not known whether he spends most of his time around Brownsville, near a major launch site developed by his SpaceX venture, or in Austin, where he continues to build his business empire. Tesla’s headquarters moved last year from California to Tesla’s new factory just outside Austin.

Four Austin billionaires join Musk in the top 1,000 on the Forbes list. What follows are their global ranking, 2022 net worth, and 2021 net worth:

Michael Dell, founder, chairman, and CEO of Round Rock-based Dell Technologies: No. 24, $55.1 billion, up from $45.1 billion
Venture capitalist Robert Smith: tied for No. 369, $6.7 billion, up from $6 billion
Tito’s Vodka baron Bert “Tito” Beveridge: tied for No. 637, $4.5 billion, down from $4.6 billion
Tech entrepreneur Thai Lee: tied for No. 709, $4.1 billion, up from $3.2 billion

Nearly 30 other Texans appear in this year’s top 1,000. Here, they are grouped by where they live.

Dallas

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones: tied for No. 185, $10.6 billion, up from $8.9 billion
Banking and real estate kingpin Andy Beal: tied for No. 201, $9.9 billion, up from $7.9 billion
Oil and real estate titan Ray Lee Hunt: tied for No. 386, $6.5 billion, up from $4.2 billion
Money manager Ken Fisher: tied for No. 509, $5.3 billion, down from $5.5 billion
Media magnate and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban: tied for No. 601, $4.7 billion, up from $4.4 billion
Oil and gas guru Trevor Rees-Jones: tied for No. 637, $4.5 billion, up from $4 billion
Hotel and investment titan Robert Rowling: tied for No. 637, $4.5 billion, up from $3.9 billion
Oil baron W. Herbert Hunt: tied for No. 665, $4.3 billion, up from $2 billion
Margot Birmingham Perot: widow of tech and real estate entrepreneur H. Ross Perot Sr., tied for No. 665, $4.3 billion, up from $4.1 billion
Oil and gas tycoon Kelcy Warren: tied for No. 728, $4 billion, up from $3.4 billion
Real estate bigwig H. Ross Perot, Jr.: tied for No. 951, $3.2 billion, up from $1.6 billion

Fort Worth

Walmart heiress Alice Walton: No. 18, $65.3 billion, up from $61.8 billion
Oil and investment guru Robert Bass: tied for No. 536, $5.1 billion, unchanged from last year
Private equity magnate David Bonderma: tied for No. 637, $4.5 billion, up from $4.1 billion
Investor and oilman Sid Bass: tied for No. 883, $3.4 billion, up from $2.9 billion

Houston

Oil mogul Jeffery Hildebrand: tied for No. 316, $7.5 billion, up from $2 billion
Pipeline magnate Richard Kinder: tied for No. 316, $7.5 billion, up from $7 billion
Houston siblings and pipeline heirs Dannine Avara, Scott Duncan, Milane Frantz, and Randa Duncan Williams: each tied for No. 375, $6.6 billion, up from $6 billion
Hospitality titan and Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta: tied for No. 471, $5.6 billion, up from $4.6 billion
Houston software entrepreneur Robert Brockman: tied for No. 601, $4.7 billion, down from $6 billion
Toyota mega-dealer Dan Friedkin: tied for No. 665, $4.3 billion, up from $4.1 billion
Houston Texans owner Janice McNair: tied for No. 687, $4.2 billion, up from $4.1 billion
Hedge fund honcho John Arnold: tied for No. 913, $3.3 billion, unchanged from last year

Elsewhere in Texas

Sports and entertainment mogul Stan Kroenke (Vernon): tied for No. 183, $10.7 billion, up from $8.2 billion
Walmart heiress Ann Walton Kroenke (Vernon): tied for No. 227, $9 billion, up from $8.4 billion
Oil tycoon Autry Stephens (Midland): tied for No. 552, $5 billion, not previously ranked

“The tumultuous stock market contributed to sharp declines in the fortunes of many of the world’s richest,” Kerry A. Dolan, assistant managing editor of Wealth at Forbes, says of this year’s ranking. “Still, more than 1,000 billionaires got wealthier over the past year. The top 20 richest alone are worth a combined $2 trillion, up from $1.8 trillion in 2021.”

Tito Beveridge, No. 637.

Photo by Zack Griggs

Tito Beveridge, No. 637.

lists rankings

2026 jobs forecast

Houston's health care sector will drive job growth in 2026, report predicts

Photo by simonkr/Getty Images

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Buoyed by the growing health care sector, the Houston metro area will add 30,900 jobs in 2026, according to a new forecast from the Greater Houston Partnership.

The report predicts the Houston area’s health care sector will tack on 14,000 jobs next year, which would make it the No. 1 industry for local job growth. The 14,000 health care jobs would represent 45 percent of the projected 30,900 new jobs. In the job-creation column, the health care industry is followed by:

Construction: addition of 6,100 jobs in 2026
Public education: Addition of 5,800 jobs
Public administration: Addition of 5,000 jobs

At the opposite end of the regional workforce, the administrative support services sector is expected to lose 7,500 jobs in 2026, preceded by:

Manufacturing: Loss of 3,400 jobs
Oil-and-gas extraction: Loss of 3,200 jobs
Retail: Loss of 1,800 jobs

“While current employment growth has moderated, the outlook remains robust and Houston’s broader economic foundation remains strong,” GHP president and CEO Steve Kean said in the report.

“Global companies are choosing to invest in Houston — Eli Lilly, Foxconn, Inventec, and others — because they believe in our workforce and our long-term trajectory,” Kean added. “These commitments reinforce that Houston is a place where companies can scale and where our economy continues to demonstrate its resilience as a major engine for growth and opportunity. These commitments and current prospects we are working on give us confidence in the future growth of our economy.”

The Greater Houston Partnership says that while the 30,900-job forecast falls short of the region’s recent average of roughly 50,000 new jobs per year, it’s “broadly in line with the muted national outlook” for employment gains anticipated in 2026.

“Even so, Houston’s young, skilled workforce and strong pipeline of major new projects should help offset energy sector pressures and keep regional growth on pace with the nation,” the report adds.

The report says that even though the health care sector faces rising insurance costs, which might cause some people to delay or skip medical appointments, and federal changes in Medicare and Medicaid, strong demographic trends in the region will ensure health care remains “a key pillar of Houston’s economy.”

As for the local oil-and-gas extraction industry, the report says fluctuations and uncertainty in the global oil-and-gas market will weigh on the Houston sector in 2026. Furthermore, oil-and-gas layoffs partly “reflect a longer-term trend as companies in the sector move toward greater efficiency using fewer workers to produce similar volumes,” according to the report.

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This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.