Alice Walton Named World's Richest Woman With $134 Billion Fortune

Alice Walton's net worth has reached $134 billion, landing her atop Forbes' 2026 World's Billionaires List as the richest woman on the planet for the third consecutive year. The 76-year-old Fort Worth resident and daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton also moved up one spot in the overall global ranking, to 14th, as her fortune grew by $33 billion over her 2025 figure of $101 billion.

The gain tracks directly with Walmart's performance. The retailer's share price climbed 41 percent since last year's Forbes ranking, and the company crossed a $1 trillion market valuation just two days after John Furner took over as CEO in February. The Walton family collectively owns around 44 percent of Walmart's stock, making every uptick in the share price an enormous event for their fortunes. Alice's brothers Rob Walton, 81, and Jim Walton, 77, rank just ahead of her on the Forbes list with estimated net worths of $146 billion and $143 billion, respectively.

Walton is now the first American woman ever worth $100 billion and one of only two women in what Forbes calls the "$100 Billion Club," the 20 individuals worldwide carrying 12-figure fortunes, up from 15 members last year. The other woman in that group is Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, the L'Oréal heiress who had held the title of world's richest woman on Forbes' annual ranking since 2020. Bettencourt Meyers added an estimated $18.4 billion to her fortune over the past year as L'Oréal shares climbed 13 percent, bringing her net worth to $100 billion. It still wasn't enough to close the gap with Walton.

Beyond the wealth ranking, Walton is best known publicly for founding the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, which she chaired for a decade before naming Jim Walton's daughter-in-law Olivia Walton as her successor in 2021. Nearly all of the $1.6 billion it cost to open the facility in 2011 came from trusts established in the names of Alice's late brother John Walton, who died in 2005, and her mother Helen Walton, who died in 2007.

The Walton family's governance role at Walmart has also evolved over the years. Rob Walton succeeded his father as chairman and served for more than two decades before handing the position to his son-in-law Greg Penner in 2015, then retiring from the board entirely in 2024. Jim Walton was replaced as a Walmart director by his son Steuart Walton in 2016 and now chairs the family's Arvest Bank Group.

The broader Forbes 2026 list reflects a historic moment in wealth concentration. The publication counted a record 3,428 billionaires worldwide, with combined net worth jumping $4 trillion to a new record total. Forbes noted there has "never been a better time to be a billionaire." Among 390 newcomers were Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Dr. Dre, and Roger Federer. Topping the full list for the second consecutive year is Elon Musk, whose net worth reached $839 billion, a figure Forbes said reflects a series of milestones: he became the first person to hit $500 billion in October, then $600 billion and $700 billion within four days in December, and $800 billion in February.

Women remain a small share of the overall list. Of the 3,428 billionaires counted, 481 are women, representing 14 percent of the ranking. That is a modest increase from last year, when women made up 406 names, or 13.4 percent.

North Texas placed 28 residents on the Forbes list. Koch Inc. stakeholder Elaine Marshall and her family rank as the wealthiest Dallas-area household, holding an estimated $30.9 billion and coming in at No. 71 globally, a gain of $2.6 billion from last year. Oil magnate Lyndal Stephens Greth and her family rank second among Dallas-area billionaires with an estimated $30 billion. Greth, the former chair of Endeavor Energy Resources, sold that company to Diamondback Energy in 2024 and ranks just six spots behind Marshall on the global list.