2 Philadelphia Residents Make Forbes Billionaire List

PHILADELPHIA — Forbes recently released its list of the world's billionaires, and three Philadelphia residents are among the commonwealth's wealthiest residents.

Pennsylvania has 17 billionaires on the list.

Among the 17 are Victoria Mars, Brian Roberts, and Richard Hayne.

Mars, worth $7.8 billion and Pennsylvania's second richest resident, and her three sisters are heirs to the family's giant candy and pet food company, Mars Incorporated.

The Mars sisters inherited their own estimated 8 percent stakes in the company when their father Forrest Mars Jr. died in 2016.

Roberts is the CEO and chairman of Comcast whose net worth is $1.9 billion, making him Pennsylvania's 10th richest resident.

He became Comcast president in 1990 at 31, then seven years later his father Ralph transferred the bulk of his voting shares in the company to him.

Hayne is the chairman, president, and CEO of Urban Outfitters. He is worth $1.3 billion, making him Pennsylvania's 12th richest.

Hayne and his ex-wife opened his first apparel shop in the mid-70s near University of Pennsylvania.

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.