Here's how we crunch the numbers on the 2021 Forbes400 list:
Victor Boyko/Getty Image, Steve Jennings/Getty Images, Michael Prince for Forbesthe 40th edition of our flagship Forbes 400 list of America’s wealthiest people. Though we’ve been at it a long time, our reporters always dig deep to uncover new details. In 2021, we started with a list of over 750 candidates and got to work.
When possible, we met with Forbes 400 members in person or spoke with them virtually or by phone. We also interviewed their employees, handlers, rivals, peers and attorneys. Uncovering their fortunes required us to pore over thousands of Securities and Exchange Commission documents, court records, probate records and news articles.
We purposely excluded dispersed family fortunes, but we did include wealth belonging to a member’s immediate family if the wealth could be traced to a living founder of the fortune. In those cases you’ll see “& family.” We also included married couples who built fortunes and businesses together if their combined net worth was enough for each person to make the $2.9 billion cutoff. In those instances, we listed both names.
We didn’t count pledges or announced gifts, or money given to donor-advised funds, that have yet to be paid out. Some billionaires worked with; others refused to cooperate, citing privacy concerns and/or religious beliefs. We scored the billionaires based on what percentage of their wealth they have given away. List members about whom we could find no reliable charitable giving information received an N.A. .
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