It's a fact of life that most billionaires – and most of the list of the 400 richest Americans – are in their 60s or older. After all, it takes a long time to amass a billion-dollar-plus fortune. That's not the case for the 13 wunderkinds on this list – none of them have reached their 40th birthdays yet, and all of them have multi-billion dollar fortunes. Most of this list earned those billions through startups. Others, like Walmart heir Lukas Walton, inherited their billions. Mark Zuckerberg is the richest person under 40. Trevor Milton, the founder of truck manufacturer Nikola, is new to the list this year but comes with some controversy. He recently stepped down from the helm of his company amid allegations of fraud. As a result, the stock of the company has plummeted, which affects Milton's net worth, so his billionaire status, as of this writing, is shaky. Missing from this year's list is Napster founder Sean Parker, who turned 40 in December.
Age: 35
Net Worth: $2.3 billion
Source: SABMiller beer, inherited
Domingo is the heir to Colombia's richest beer family. The Santo Domingo Group has a majority stake of Bavaria Brewery. His grandfather Julio Mario Santo Domingo owned the Colombian brewery Bavaria and traded it to own 15% of SABMiller in 2005. Six percent of that was left to Julio Mario Santo Domingo, III when he passed away. He lives in a $4 million apartment in New York City and works as a DJ with his group Sheik 'n' Beik.
(L-R) Airbnb Founders CTO Nathan Blecharczyk, CEO Brian Chesky and Chief Product Officer Joe Gebbia (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Age: 39
Net Worth $3.3 billion
Source: Airbnb, self-made
Age: 39
Net Worth:$3.3 billion
Source: Airbnb, self-made
Age: 37
Net Worth: $3.3 billion
Source: Airbnb, self-made
Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk co-founded Airbnb in 2008. The Covid-19 pandemic and related shutdown of non-essential travel has dealt a huge blow to the company. The valuation of Airbnb was cut to $26 billion in April. It previously had a valuation of $35 billion. The company laid off a quarter of its employees in May. Airbnb filed the paperwork for its IPO in August.
Age: 38
Net Worth: $3.6 billion
Source: In-N-Out Burger, inherited and growing
Lynsi's grandparents Harry and Esther Snyder founded IN-N-Out in 1948. She inherited the company after a series of deaths in the family left her as the sole heir. When she first inherited the company, she technically only owned 50% of the company, the other half sat in trust until Lynsi turned 35 in 2018. Lynsi has expanded the beloved burger chain in her time as head of the company.
Age: 32
Net Worth: $4.2 billion
Source: Snap, self-made
Murphy is one of the co-founders of Snap. He is the company's Chief Technology Officer. In April, he donated $5 million to help 60,000 residents of Los Angeles who faced financial hardship due to the coronavirus.
Age: 30
Net Worth: $4.5 billion
Source: Snap, self-made
Spiegel is the youngest billionaire in the U.S. He is the co-founder of Snapchat, technically now known as Snap Inc. He teamed up with fellow Stanford students Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown to develop the idea, and they launched the prototype under the name "Picaboo." They eventually renamed it as "Snapchat," and by 2012, the app was gaining in popularity and has over 1 million daily active users. On March 2, 2017, Snap Inc. debuted on the New York Stock Exchange. The company was expected to go public at $17 per share, but actually opened up at $24.
Ernest Garcia III
Age: 38
Net Worth: $5.3 billion
Source: Used cars, inherited and self-made
Garcia co-founded Carvana as a subsidiary of DriveTime, which his father Earnest Garcia II owns. Carvana is now the fourth-largest used car dealer in the U.S., up from eighth in 2019, thanks to customers buying cars online during their housebound pandemic days.
Age: 37
Net Worth: $7.2 billion
Source: Pipelines, inherited
Duncan is the heir to the Duncan family fortune through Enterprise Products Partners L.P, a natural gas and crude oil pipeline company based in Houston, Texas. Enterprise was taken public in 1998 and in 2010 had almost 50,000 miles of on and offshore pipelines, as well as the equivalent of nearly 220 million barrels of natural gas and gas liquids in storage capacity. His father Dan passed away in 2010 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Scott and his three sisters each inherited over $3 billion.
Trevor Milton
Age: 38
Net Worth: $10 billion*
Source: Nikola Motors, self-made
Trevor Milton is the founder of Nikola Motors, the maker of electric semi-trucks. He took the company public in June, which is when we estimated his net worth at $10 million.
*However, since then Milton has been forced out of the company he founded due to allegations of fraud. The specific allegation is that Milton misled investors about the prospects of the company by staging a video in which one of the hydrogen-powered truck prototypes appeared to be effortlessly cruising down a hill.
Age: 36
Net Worth: $14 billion
Source: Facebook, self-made
Moskovitz was, at one point, the youngest billionaire in the world—just barely. He is eight days younger than his Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. He left Facebook in 2008 to co-found Asana, which is growing in popularity thanks to everyone working from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Rumor has it that Asana plans to go public before the end of 2020.
Lukas Walton
Age: 33
Net Worth: $18 billion
Source: Walmart, inherited
Walton is the only son of John T. Walton and Christy Walton. He graduated from Colorado College in 2010. His father John was killed in a plane crash in 2005 and left one-third of his $17 billion fortune to Lukas. He owns 4% of Walmart.
Mark Zuckerberg
Age: 36
Net Worth: $97 billion
Source: Facebook, self-made
Zuckerberg is the youngest of the top 100 richest people in the world. Out of the top 30, he's the youngest by more than a decade. The vast majority of Mark's fortune is attributable to his shares in Facebook. Mark currently owns around 400 million total shares of Facebook, broken up into various classes that have different voting privileges. He owns around 12 million Class A shares of Facebook and 365 million Class B shares, roughly 81% of all the B shares. Through those Class B super-voting shares, Mark has 53% voting rights over the company.
