2 Bryn Mawr Residents Make Forbes Billionaire List

BRYN MAWR, PA — Forbes recently released its list of the world's billionaires, and two Bryn Mawr residents are among the commonwealth's wealthiest residents.

Pennsylvania has 17 billionaires on the list.

Among the 17 are Michael Rubin and John Middleton.

Rubin, worth $3.5 billion and Pennsylvania's fifth richest resident, founded GSI Commerce, which he sold to eBay for $2.4 billion in 2011, after dropping out of Villanova University.

He is now the majority owner and CEO of Kynetic, a holding company for e-commerce companies Fanatics and Rue Gilt Groupe.

As for Middleton, who is worth $3.4 billion and the state's sixth richest person, made his fortune selling his family's storied tobacco business to Philip Morris' parent, Altria, in 2007 for $2.9 billion in cash, according to Forbes.

John Middleton Inc. was founded as a small retail tobacco shop in Philadelphia in 1856 by Middleton's great-great-grandfather.

Two Lower Merion residents and a Haverford man were included on the list.

You can see the full list of Pennsylvania's billionaires here.

The number of billionaires on Forbes’ 35th annual list jumped to an unprecedented 2,755 people, 660 more than a year ago. Altogether, they are worth $13.1 trillion, up from $8 trillion in 2020.

Among those on the list, 86 percent are richer today than they were a year ago.

The numbers will likely spark outrage, writes Forbes Chief Content Officer Randall Lane. “There’s no getting around a collective $5 trillion wealth surge during a pandemic, when most of the world felt scared, sick, besieged,” he wrote in a comprehensive essay titled “Operation Wealth Speed."

To compile this year’s list, Forbes used a snapshot of its real-time billionaires rankings by analyzing stock prices and exchange rates for March 5.

A record 493 people made their debut on this year’s list. Another 250 who’d fallen off in the past made a reappearance, according to Forbes. This year’s list includes a record 328 female billionaires, up from 241 in 2020.

Soon-to-be-former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos retained the top spot on this year’s list for the fourth consecutive year. Bezos, who founded the e-commerce giant out of his garage in Seattle, Washington, will step down as CEO at the end of this year.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk soared to the No. 2 spot, up from No. 31 on last year’s ranking. Bernard Arnault of LVMH remains at No. 3, followed by Bill Gates at No. 4. Rounding out this year’s top five is Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

See the full 2021 Forbes Billionaires List.