Lovemoney
Posted: November 2, 2023 | Last updated: January 2, 2024
Boasting sensational riches that will make your eyes water, the world's 50 most-moneyed families are collectively worth over $4 trillion – roughly equivalent to the GDPs of Italy and Canada combined.
Counting down from the 50th richest family to the wealthiest dynasty in the world, read on as we reveal the most affluent clans globally, based on their recent net worths as estimated by Forbes in October 2023 or Bloomberg in 2022, except where otherwise stated.
All dollar values in US dollars.
Brothers Raymond (left) and Thomas Kwok are property magnates with an empire that includes real estate in Hong Kong and China. Their late
father Kwok Tak-Seng created Sun Hung Kai Properties in 1972.
Brother Walter, who died in October 2018, was at the helm from 1990 to 2008; then Thomas and Raymond assumed the running of the firm,
with their mother Kwong Siu-hing as key shareholder.
However, Thomas was jailed for five years in 2014 on corruption charges, being released in early 2019. The family's net worth has fallen since
then, but still stands at a very healthy $24.7 billion.
The daughter of Hungarian-Czech immigrants, Estée Lauder began her career by selling cosmetics to New York beauty salons. She later launched her own skincare business with her husband Joseph. Today, the multibillion-dollar company is still owned by her descendants.
In the latest financial year, Estée Lauder reported a huge net revenue figure of $15.9 billion. The family fortune is shared among three generations, including Estée's sons Leonard and Ronald. Leonard is pictured here with Ronald's daughters Aerin (far right) and Jane (far left).
The second-richest family in Mexico is the Larrea Mota-Velasco family, headed by mining tycoon Germán (pictured). He's the majority owner of Mexico's largest copper mining company, Grupo México, and has been chairman of the Southern Copper Corporation (SCC) since 1999.
His net worth rocketed from an estimated $11 billion in 2020 to around $25.7 billion today, according to data from Forbes. A keen breeder of thoroughbred horses, Larrea Mota-Velasco is married and lives in Mexico City.
Sir James Dyson, the inventor and businessman behind the British appliance company Dyson, is a regular on the list of wealthiest UK residents published by The Sunday Times newspaper. This year was no exception. Although Forbes pegs his personal net worth at $9.6 billion, The Sunday Times Rich List places his current family wealth at $28.7 billion.
Dyson is pictured here with his wife, Deirdre, who reportedly supported her husband's early entrepreneurship with her teacher's salary. They married in 1968 and have three children.
What began as a wood and building materials company in 1963 took a turn towards high-end fashion when François Pinault bought a controlling stake in the Gucci Group in 1999.
The fashion empire Kering now owns brands including Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen, as well as auction house Christie's. It's run by Pinault's son François-Henri (pictured), who's married to Hollywood actress Salma Hayek.
In 1968, the late Dan Duncan (pictured) cofounded the natural gas wholesaler Enterprise Product Partners with just $10,000, the equivalent of around $86,400 today.
Duncan grew up poor in the care of his grandmother, having lost his mother when he was just seven years old. His four children enjoyed a very different childhood: when he died in 2010, he left behind a fortune of $10 billion, and the family wealth has skyrocketed since. Although all four of his children profit from the business, daughter Randa is the only family member still working for the company.
Brunei's royal dynasty, the House of Bolkiah, was formed in 1363 and has ruled the southeast Asian country on and off ever since.
Headed by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah (pictured), the family has become rich thanks to Brunei's vast reserves of oil.
The Sultan, who owns 500 Rolls-Royce cars, 300 Ferraris, and a fleet of private jets, is estimated to be worth around $30 billion according to the most recent figures published by the India Times.
Brothers David and Simon Reuben were born in Bombay (now known as Mumbai) in India but grew up in the UK after their parents' divorce. The pair started out in the scrap metal and textile industries but were smart with their money, investing in real estate and using the profits to enter the Russian metals market.
Today their empire is worth $30.4 billion, according to the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List, and is principally derived from real estate in the UK.
Simon Reuben is pictured here with his wife Joyce and daughter Lisa at a dinner hosted by the family's charitable arm, the Reuben Foundation.
Late brothers Karl (pictured) and Theo Albrecht founded Aldi in 1946 in Essen, Germany. The supermarket chain split into two different entities in 1960, Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd, after the siblings disagreed over whether to stock cigarettes.
Both groups expanded internationally, and Aldi Nord snapped up US chain Trader Joe's in 1979. The firm is now controlled by Karl's children, Beate Heister and Karl Albrecht Jr., while Aldi Süd is owned by Theo's namesake son and the heirs of his brother Berthold.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nevada's richest family made its money from gambling.
Patriarch Sheldon Adelson, who started his first business at the age of 12, got into casinos in 1989 and built The Venetian in the late 1990s, cashing in big time on its success.
He died in January 2021 at the age of 87. Today, Adelson's widow Miriam owns more than half of the gambling empire, with Forbes estimating the family's wealth to be $32.3 billion.
Ma Huateng, aka Pony Ma, co-founded tech conglomerate Tencent in 1998 in the city of Shenzhen, China.
Tencent is the world's largest gaming company and one of the most prominent social media firms on the planet.
Unsurprisingly, Ma, who was instrumental in the company's success, has become very rich indeed. He's married to Wang Dan-ting, and the couple have a daughter called Manlin.
Tadashi Yanai is the businessman behind Japanese fashion giant Fast Retailing, the parent company of brands including Uniqlo, Helmut Lang, and GU. As its flagship company, Uniqlo currently has around 2,400 locations in 25 countries.
Yanai, who has aspirations for Fast Retailing to become the largest retailer in the world, is married with two sons. He reportedly lives in a 16,586-square-foot mansion just outside Tokyo and owns two golf courses in Hawaii.
The Hong Kong-based Li family are next in our countdown. Li Ka-shing, nicknamed 'Superman' for good reason, is a business genius who started plastics company Cheung Kong Industries in 1951 with modest savings and loans from relatives.
Over the years, the company evolved into CK Hutchison Holdings, one of Hong Kong's leading conglomerates. Li's son Victor (pictured here with his father) is chairman, while his brother Richard chairs the investment vehicle Pacific Century Group.
The total net worth given here doesn’t include Victor Li, so the $36.3 billion figure is likely to be a modest estimate of the total wealth of this family of business magnates.
Founded in 1885 in Germany by Albert Boehringer, Boehringer Ingelheim initially produced tartaric acid for the food industry before branching out into pharmaceuticals.
Today, the drugmaker is one of the biggest pharma companies in the world, with the type 2 diabetes treatment Jardiance a significant seller. Boehringer's descendants still control the family firm, with scion Hubertus von Baumbach (pictured) serving as company chairman.
Samuel Curtis (S.C.) Johnson started out with a flooring company in 1886 before developing his famous floor wax.
His son Herbert Fisk Johnson took over but died without leaving a will, resulting in a family feud until the company was divided between his two children, Herbert and Henrietta.
In 1967, Herbert’s son Samuel became chairman, and his son Herbert Fisk Johnson III (pictured) is now CEO of the family firm. In 2020, Forbes estimated the S.C. Johnson family's net worth to be $37 billion.
Brothers Jay and Donald Pritzker founded the Hyatt Hotel chain in 1957.
Jay’s children Nancy, Thomas, John, Daniel, and Gigi, together with Donald’s three kids Penny, Anthony, and JB (pictured), split the fortune and went on to be mega-successful in their own right.
Thomas is the chairman and CEO of the Pritzker Organization that owns Hyatt Hotels, John owns a boutique hotel group, Gigi is a movie producer, JB is the current Governor of Illinois, and Penny is an ex-US Secretary of Commerce.
In 1964, Phil Knight established sportswear trailblazer Nike with athletics coach Bill Bowerman in Oregon. Under the original name of Blue Ribbon Sports, the business set out to distribute Japanese athletic shoes in the US.
Knight's filmmaker son Travis (pictured here with his father) works for Laika, the family's animation studio. Knight's other son Matthew died in a scuba diving accident in 2004.
Having studied at both, Knight has donated more than half a billion dollars to the University of Oregon and Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Forbes currently pegs the Knight family's wealth at $40.4 billion.
Piedmontese confectioner Michele Ferrero created the iconic Nutella spread in 1964 and oversaw the expansion of the clan's chocolate empire. His sons Giovanni and Pietro joined the business in 1997.
Pietro died in 2011, and Michele passed away in 2015, leaving Giovanni as the sole heir.
The bulk of the family fortune belongs to Giovanni, now executive chairman of the business, which reported sales of $15 billion in 2022. According to Forbes, his mother, Maria Franca Fissolo (pictured here with Giovanni at Michele's funeral), has a fortune of $2 billion.
Edward C Johnson II founded the mutual fund Fidelity in 1946, before his son, also named Edward, took over.
Edward Johnson III ran the business until 2014, before passing the responsibility on to his daughter Abigail (the pair are pictured here). He died in March last year.
The Johnson family, including Edward's other two children Edward IV and Elizabeth, owns around 35% of Fidelity.
Topping the UK's Sunday Times Rich List, the Indian-born Hinduja family derives its $43.7 billion fortune from the Hinduja group: a global conglomerate with interests ranging from healthcare to banking. The clan owns swaths of luxury real estate in London, including a 67,000-square-foot property near Buckingham Palace.
Proving that money can't always buy happiness, however, the Hindujas have been feuding for years. Sri Hinduja, who passed away in May this year, took his brothers Gopi (pictured right), Prakash (pictured left), and Ashok to court in 2015 following a disagreement over the ownership of a Swiss bank. Last year, a judge overseeing the case ruled that Sri's medical needs, primarily treatment for dementia, weren't being met amid the tension.
Industrialist Günther Quandt established the firm that would become the BMW Group in the 1910s. His descendants have managed to hold on to a controlling stake in the multinational automaker, which is the parent company of Rolls-Royce and Mini, and generates annual revenues of around $150 billion.
Günther's grandson Stefan Quandt owns a 23.6% share of the company, while Stefan's sister Susanne Klatten controls around 19%. Her stake in the family fortune might seem enviable, but in 2019 Susanne told the German business magazine Manager Magazin that inheriting huge sums of money comes with strings "that aren't so nice."
In 1896, Fritz Hoffman-La Roche founded the Swiss drug maker Roche. More than 125 years later, his descendants still control 9% of the company, which correlates to an approximate $25 billion stake. They received over $730 million in dividends in 2021.
Other family interests include the World Wildlife Fund, which was cofounded by Lukas Hoffman in 1961. The picture shows another member of the family, Maja Oeri, at the Museum of Modern Art's Party in the Garden in 2014. Oeri has a fortune of $2.8 billion and serves as a vice chair on the museum's board.
Retail royalty, the Mulliez family has been involved in the industry since the 19th century, when patriarch Louis Mulliez-Lestienne founded clothing chain Phildar in the northern French city of Roubaix. Inspired by America's self-service stores, his grandson Gérard Mulliez (pictured) set up supermarket chain Auchan in 1961 and hasn't looked back.
The firm, which is still family-owned, now boasts more than 4,000 locations worldwide, and sources estimate the Mulliez family is worth $45.9 billion.
After the authorities shut down his profitable fireworks factory in World War II, entrepreneur Oei Wie Gwan founded the clove cigarette firm Djarum.
A devastating fire destroyed the company plant in 1963, the same year Oei died, but his sons Michael Bambang (pictured) and Robert Budi Hartono stepped in and saved the firm from ruin, transforming it into one of Indonesia's leading conglomerates. Adding to his impressive fortune, Michael is also a professional bridge player who won third place in the 2018 Asian Games.
Through their investment firm Woodbridge, the Thomsons own a controlling stake in media information giant Thomson Reuters.
Third-generation family member David, the 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet (pictured), is the chairman of Reuters, while his brother Pete is chairman of Woodbridge.
The Chakri dynasty has been Thailand's ruling royal house for more than two centuries and continues to be treated with the utmost reverence in the country.
The current King, Maha Vajiralongkorn, heads the family. However, who's next in line is far from certain, as his oldest daughter remains in a coma after collapsing while walking her dogs in December 2022.
Together, figures from The Times of India suggest the dynasty controls up to $60 billion in assets through the Crown Property Bureau, including extensive tracts of valuable real estate in central Bangkok. It also owns a multitude of shares in luxury hotel group Kempinski.
Together with his brother Paul, Pierre Wertheimer took over French make-up firm Bourjois in 1917 and went on to bankroll fashion designer Coco Chanel during the 1920s and 1930s in exchange for a 70% share of her company.
Pierre's grandsons Alain and Gérard (pictured) still own the controlling interest in Chanel and have a net worth of $31 billion each.
The Cargill-MacMillan dynasty has built a $65.2 billion fortune from its agribusiness firm Cargill Inc., one of America's largest privately owned companies.
The clan consists of seven generations and approximately 100 members. Pictured here is Martha MacMillan, great-great-granddaughter of William Wallace Cargill, who founded the family firm. She's one of an estimated 14 billionaires in the family.
In February 1984, Michael Dell, who was just 19, founded his eponymous computer hardware company in Austin, Texas, using a $1,000 investment courtesy of his parents.
The firm produced its first PC in 1985 and has gone from strength to strength.
Today, Dell is a global household name. Michael Dell is married with four children.
India's Gautam Adani (pictured) is the chairman of the Adani Group, which has interests in ports, airports, energy, edible oils, cement, and real estate. Forbes reports his wealth at $68 billion. His older brother Vinod is worth another $13.4 billion, making a family total of $81.4 billion.
At one point, the Adani family's wealth had been estimated at around $150 billion, but recent accusations of fraud and stock market manipulation have caused the group's shares to plummet, along with much of their net worth.
Françoise Bettencourt Meyers and her family inherited a 33% stake in global cosmetics leviathan L'Oréal in 2017 on the death of her mother, Liliane Bettencourt.
The granddaughter of L'Oréal founder Eugène Schueller, Bettencourt Meyers, who's pictured here with her sons Nicolas (left) and Jean-Victor, devotes her time to writing Bible commentaries and improving Jewish-Christian relations.
The richest person in the world from 2010 to 2013, Carlos Slim Helú has slipped down the rankings somewhat but still boasts a staggering net worth and remains the richest man in Mexico.
The Mexican tycoon and his family own 79% of conglomerate Grupo Carso, the company where he made his fortune.
Indian tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani co-founded oil and gas giant Reliance Industries in 1965 and transformed his Mumbai textile company into one of India's largest conglomerates.
Upon his death in 2002, Ambani's son Mukesh took over as chairman, MD, and majority shareholder. His three children are all involved in the business today.
Fast-fashion retailer Amancio Ortega (pictured with his youngest daughter Marta) and his late ex-wife Rosalía Mera opened the first Zara store in 1975 in A Coruña in northwest Spain, initially calling it Zorba after "Zorba the Greek."
The chain is now part of Ortega's Inditex group, which also includes the Massimo Dutti, Bershka, and Pull&Bear brands.
Ortega is the richest man in Spain, with a fortune of $83.5 billion. His eldest daughter Sandra has a fortune of $7.3 billion, while Marta is now chairperson of the Inditex group.
Owners of French luxury goods firm Hermès, the Dumas family has an estimated combined fortune of $94.6 billion, according to the most recent figures from Bloomberg.
The clan's company was founded by patriarch Thierry Hermès in 1837 and started as a Parisian harness workshop, before branching out into the high-end fashion and luxury goods business.
Notable descendants of the family include the late Jean-Louis Dumas, who transformed the firm into a global powerhouse, and Axel Dumas, the current CEO (pictured).
Michael Bloomberg founded his eponymous media, financial services, and software firm in 1981 after cutting his teeth at New York securities brokerage Salomon Brothers.
Now a major philanthropist who's given away more than $8 billion to date, the magnate was mayor of the Big Apple for three terms. He ran in America's 2020 Presidential Campaign but pulled out early on.
He shares his billions with his daughters Georgina (left) and Emma, and partner Diana Taylor.
Computer scientist Sergey Brin cofounded Google with Larry Page back in 1998. At the time of writing, his net worth stands at $101.3 billion.
Brin's ex-wife Anne Wojcicki, with whom he has two children, is the cofounder and CEO of personal genomics firm 23andMe. She's independently worth around $270 million.
College dropout Steve Ballmer was hired by Bill Gates in 1980 and served as Microsoft CEO from 2000 to 2014.
Since leaving the company, the tech whiz has become the sole proprietor of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, and in 2018 he sold a 4% stake in Twitter.
Ballmer has been married to Connie Snyder since 1990, and the couple are committed philanthropists. They have three sons who share in the family fortune.
The House of Saud, which has ruled the country that bears its name since 1744, is estimated to be worth $105 billion. Bloomberg has reached this number based on cumulative payments made to Saudi Arabia's royal family from the executive office of the king over the last 50 years. However, it could just be the tip of the iceberg: the gigantic family is believed to have around 15,000 members, and their total net worth has been pegged at an absolutely eye-watering $1.4 trillion.
The picture shows the current King Salman, his controversial son Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and some of their close relatives.
Google's Larry Page is worth more than company cofounder Sergey Brin, with his fortune currently pegged at $105.4 billion.
Page is the former CEO of Alphabet Inc., for which he was paid a symbolic one dollar per year.
The computer science mastermind shares his wealth with his wife, biomedical scientist and philanthropist Lucinda Southworth, and their two children.
Fred C. Koch founded the game-changing oil refining company that became Koch Industries in 1940 and passed it on to his four sons upon his death in 1967. However, it wasn't such a happy family, and Charles and David successfully sued their brothers, Bill and Frederick, for control of the firm during the 1980s and 90s.
David and Frederick have both passed away, with David leaving control of the company to his brother Charles.
The family is worth a staggering $106.5 billion, with Charles worth $50.6 billion and David's widow Julia worth $55.9 billion.
Once the third-richest person on the planet, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has dropped down the rankings considerably but still boasts a net worth of $107.4 billion.
The social network billionaire shares his fortune with his wife, Priscilla Chan and their two daughters, Max and August Zuckerberg. He's planning to give a sizable portion of his fortune to charity.
When Forrest Mars Sr. died in 1991, the confectionery tycoon bequeathed Mars, Inc., the candy and pet food empire his father founded in 1911, to his three children Jacqueline (pictured here with her granddaughters Graysen Airth and Katherine Burgstahler), Forrest Mars Jr and John Mars.
The Mars siblings have complete control over the company, which boasts a plethora of popular brands, from Snickers and M&Ms to Whiskas and Dolmio.
The family is worth a staggering $108.6 billion according to Forbes.
Genius investor Warren Buffett has been the chairman and largest shareholder of the hugely successful holding company Berkshire Hathaway since 1970.
A signatory of the Giving Pledge, the so-called Oracle of Omaha, who lives relatively modestly with his children, has promised to give away more than 99% of his wealth during his lifetime or upon his death.
The cofounder, executive chairman, and CTO of the Oracle Corporation, New York City-born Larry Ellison is one of the world's richest tech entrepreneurs. He's also a keen yachtsman, aviator, and philanthropist.
Both his children are prominent in the movie industry.
Ellison's daughter Megan (pictured here at the Golden Globe Awards) is a producer who's worked on hit movies, including Zero Dark Thirty and American Hustle, while his son David is the founder of Skydance Media.
France's Bernard Arnault and his family control luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, which was created by Arnault in 1987 and boasts some of the world's most prestigious brands, including Dior, Givenchy, and Dom Pérignon.
The company also bought Tiffany and Co for $15.8 billion in 2021.
Taking an active role in the running of the group, Arnault is chairman and CEO, and he's been vying with Elon Musk for the position of world's richest man. His five children also play an active role in the company.
America's most-moneyed family is the Waltons, who control 47% of the world's biggest retailer by revenue, Walmart.
The fortune is shared between the living heirs of brothers Sam and James, who founded the unstoppable family company in Arkansas back in 1962.
Major scions include Christy, Rob (pictured left), Alice (center), and Jim (right).
The House of Nahyan has been the reigning royal family of Abu Dhabi since 1793, with an estimated $300 billion net worth, according to Bloomberg. While much of this fortune comes from oil, the family also owns Manchester City Football Club and has invested in Elon Musk's SpaceX.
The head of the family, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan (pictured), died in May 2022. He was the leader of the UAE and chaired the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which manages an estimated $850 billion in assets.
The House of Thani has been the ruling family in Qatar since the mid-19th century. The clan, headed by the country's leader, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, is said to number in the thousands, possibly around 7,000 or 8,000.
The family controls the country's legendary $328 billion sovereign wealth fund, which has assets including London's Shard skyscraper and Harrods department store, and hefty stakes in famous firms such as Volkswagen.
According to recent speculation, the family is worth an estimated $335 billion.
Numbering some 1,000 members, the Al-Sabah dynasty has reigned over Kuwait for more than two centuries, and the former head of the family was the nation's emir, Sheikh Sabah IV Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah (pictured here with Donald Trump).
He died in 2020, and Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber is his successor. In 1991, the clan's wealth, much of which is tied up in US stocks and shares, was estimated by Time magazine to be a whopping $90 billion. Experts suggest the fortune has more or less quadrupled since then.
Now discover more about the incredible wealth of the world's richest royal families
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