Texas covers more than 260,000 square miles of land, equivalent to nearly 250 Rhode Islands. Put another way, the Lone Star State encompasses about 166.4 million acres, equivalent to more than 305,000 average Texas farms.
Given those eye-popping figures, it shouldn’t be a shocker that about one-fourth of the country’s mega-owners of private land have ties to Texas, either living here or owning land here (or both). That’s according to The Land Report’s 2025 list of the country’s top private landowners.
The highest-ranked Houstonian is oil-and-gas billionaire Russell Gordy (No. 76). He owns 212,000 acres of ranchland in Texas, Montana, and Wyoming. Gordy’s portfolio includes the 1,300-acre Rock Creek Ranch, which features property near Copperas Cove and Llano, and the 19,000-acre La Ceniza Ranch near Uvalde. He sits on the Texas State University System Board of Regents.
Statewide, the highest-ranked Texan on the list is billionaire Stan Kroenke, who owns more than 1.76 million acres across the country. His empire includes about 60 million square feet of real estate, the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, and the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche. He appears at No. 4 in the ranking.
Kroenke’s largest property apparently is Waggoner Ranch, a property northwest of Wichita Falls that he bought in 2016. The Land Report says the ranch comprises 560,000 acres; other media reports put the acreage at 535,000. Kroenke also owns land in Nevada and Wyoming.
Billionaire Stan Kroenke owns Texas' massive Waggoner Ranch. Photo courtesy of Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty
Other notable Texas-related landowners in The Land Report’s top 100 (along with their national rankings) include:
Jeff Bezos (No. 23). The Miami-based billionaire founder of Amazon owns the 165,000-acre Corn Ranch, north of Van Horn, which is about 120 miles west of Fort Stockton. It’s a launch site for his Blue Origin aerospace company. In all, Bezos owns about 462,000 acres of land in the U.S.
Bass family (No. 38). Oil-and-gas billionaires Ed, Lee, Robert, and Sid Bass of Fort Worth control family holdings that include 285,000 acres of land. In 2017, the family sold 275,000 acres of Permian Basin oilfields to Spring-based ExxonMobil for $6.6 billion.
Taylor Sheridan (No. 49). The Yellowstone and Landman producer owns 267,000 acres spread across several ranches. The millionaire’s land holdings include the 206,000-acre 6666 Ranch near Lubbock and the 282-acre Bosque Ranch in Weatherford, which he calls home. Sheridan, an alumnus of Texas State University, grew up in Fort Worth and on a ranch in Cranfills Gap, roughly 90 miles northwest of Waco.
'Yellowstone' creator Taylor Sheridan is one of the biggest landowners in Texas. Getty Images
Stewart and Lynda Resnick (No. 87). The California-based billionaire couple owns 196,775 acres in Texas and California. Brands under the umbrella of their business, The Wonderful Co., include Fiji Water, POM Wonderful pomegranate juice, Wonderful Pistachios, and flower delivery service Teleflora.
