According to the 2024 World’s Richest Families list, Walmart Waltons leads the pack at $432.4 billion in holdings. Their combined fortune even eclipses the personal wealth of Elon Musk, the planet’s richest individual, and towers over other elite families, including the Ambanis of India.
Berkshire Hathaway’s $30 billion investment combined with the fortune of the Waltons, founded on their 46% ownership in Walmart, which has seen explosive growth, also fuelled by an 80% growth in this year’s Walmart shares, is an illustration of unprecedented growth.
The Ambanis (8th Place in India) and the Mistrys (23rd Place in Shapoorji Pallonji Group) both ranked 8th and 23rd, respectively. This branch classifies the Ambanis together with a narrow group of families that are still wealthier than Musk, on a consolidated family definition.
A Year of Unprecedented Growth for the Waltons
Walton’s fortune increased by $172.7 billion just in 2023, which is around $473.2 million, 24 hours a day. Their ascent to the top of Bloomberg’s index is mainly the result of the Size Hardware general retailer’s tremendous merchandise sales attributable to its extensive retail network of 10,600 stores worldwide and superior performance in the retail industry.
This incredible expansion draws attention to the family’s three-generation history, which has been the base of Walmart’s position as the biggest store retailer on earth. The Waltons’ grip is orders of magnitude larger than that of any other wealthy individual family, from Arab, Muslim, or other powerful families in the Middle East and European baroque noble families.
Global Competition: Royal Families and Luxury Giants
In second place on World’s Richest Families 2024, the fortune of the Al Nahyan family from the UAE comes to $323.9 billion. With the ruling family, the President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at its head, still today it is in a position to take advantage of the oil riches and the big companies of this region. They rule the Abu Dhabi stock market, which is a manifestation of the breadth of their influence.
Following the Al Thani family of Qatar in third place with a net worth of $172.9 billion, etc. Rooted in more than eight generations, the Al Thani dynasty still stands as a testament to wealth in the Gulf, its economy driven by oil and gas.
French style is represented by the family Hermès, the fourth largest with $170.6 billion. For 6 generations, this heritage of luxury has transformed their image to become a global fashion image by instance through the persuasive actions of individuals, like Axel Dumas.
The fifth place is occupied by the family Koch, based on the US Koch children with an asset base of $148.5 billion fortune, resulting from a vast, multifaceted industrial group built around oil and energy. As their wealth has grown across three generations, the Kochs are icons in the American business landscape.
India’s Wealthiest Families Hold Their Ground
In the eighth place, India’s Ambani family takes pride, in delivering one of Asia’s most prominent business empires. Reliance Industries, headed by Mukesh Ambani, is still making waves in the world, in the energy, retail, and communications et al. Meanwhile, the Mistry family, with a legacy in construction and engineering through Shapoorji Pallonji Group, earned their place at 23rd on the global list.
The existence of these Indian families in the city reflects the expanding relevance of the area in the global economic landscape.
Bloomberg set forth that the world’s heads of households, in 2023, added $406.5 Bn in assets (a telling symptom of the so vast wealth inequality between the top levels of society). The Waltons alone produced net worth as fast as (and in some cases, faster than) most national economies, providing a testament to the unparalleled disparity in global wealth concentration.