The overwhelming majority of people who make it onto "richest people" lists are men. This fact is unsurprising, considering the history of discriminatory workplace practices and various barriers to women's wealth, including barring women from having credit cards until the 1970s.
Madam C.J. Walker, an early 20th-century purveyor of hair care and cosmetics for Black women, is widely considered the first woman self-made millionaire in the United States. But the glass ceiling still hasn't been shattered more than a century later.
That inequality may finally shift in the coming years. A historic transfer of wealth is putting more money in women's hands than ever before, and many wealthy women, like Melinda French Gates, spend theirs on philanthropic and charitable causes.
Even in 2026, an income gap leaves women earning $0.82 on average for every $1 a man makes. But according to an August 2024 Fortune report, women will soon control the majority of personal wealth, which is expected to reach $30 trillion within the next 10 years.
For now, though, Stacker compiled a list of the 15 richest women in America, using data from Forbes. These wealthy women are ranked by their net worth as of October 2026. Heiresses like the Waltons inherited their fortunes, MacKenzie Scott built hers alongside her husband at Amazon, and newcomer Daniela Amodei made hers in artificial intelligence.
Keep reading to see how many names you recognize.
Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance // Getty Images
1 / 15#15. Daniela Amodei
- Net worth: $15.5 billion
- Worldwide rank: 184
- Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence
Daniela Amodei cofounded the artificial intelligence company Anthropic in 2021 with her brother, Dario Amodei, and five other former OpenAI employees. She serves as the company's president, while Dario is CEO.
Amodei studied English literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and worked on a congressional campaign in Pennsylvania before joining Stripe as an early employee in 2013. She later spent about three years at OpenAI, rising to vice president of safety and policy.
In May 2026, Anthropic raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation, surpassing OpenAI for the first time. Born in 1987, she is the youngest woman on this list.
Steve Jennings // Getty Images
2 / 15#14. Laurene Powell Jobs
- Net worth: $15.6 billion
- Worldwide rank: 182
- Source of wealth: Apple, Disney
Laurene Powell Jobs met her late husband, Apple founder Steve Jobs, after he gave a guest lecture at Stanford University, where she was an MBA student. When he died in 2011, Laurene inherited billions of dollars in Apple and Disney stocks.
Owner of The Atlantic since 2017, she received praise in March 2025 as the "quiet superhero" behind the Signalgate scandal, in which the publication revealed that editor Jeffrey Goldberg had received private messages related to top-secret war plans. In December 2025, she divested her stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment.
In 2021, she launched the Waverley Street Foundation and committed to donate $3 billion over a decade to organizations addressing climate change. In June 2026, she returned to Stanford to deliver the commencement address at the Graduate School of Business, where she earned her MBA in 1991.
Steve Eichner/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images
3 / 15#13. Nancy Walton Laurie
- Net worth: $17.4 billion
- Worldwide rank: 157
- Source of wealth: Walmart
One of several Walmart heirs on this list, Nancy Walton Laurie inherited enough company stock from her father, Bud Walton, to make her a billionaire. Walton Laurie and her husband, Bill Laurie, owned Missouri's Providence Bank until they sold it in 2021.
Besides her business interests, in 1998, she founded the Columbia Performing Arts Centre in Columbia, Missouri, and continues to be deeply invested in the center's success. Like so many billionaires, Walton Laurie has come under fire for her lavish lifestyle, most recently after a June 2025 report about her $300 million yacht.
Alberto E. Rodriguez // Getty Images
4 / 15#12. Christy Walton
- Net worth: $22.1 billion
- Worldwide rank: 121
- Source of wealth: Walmart
When Christy Walton's husband John died in 2005, she inherited one-sixth of his Walmart fortune. In 2010, she established the venture capital firm Cuna del Mar, which fights for sustainable seafood supply chains by backing brands like Earth Ocean Farms and Sol Azul Maricultivos.
In March 2025, Walton placed a full-page ad in The New York Times critiquing President Donald Trump's administration. In April 2025, she helped fund the Vaccine Integrity Project to protect safe vaccine use in the U.S. She was one of the biggest backers of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump super PAC. She leads a very private life in Jackson, Wyoming.
Chip Somodevilla // Getty Images
5 / 15#11. Diane Hendricks
- Net worth: $23.6 billion
- Worldwide rank: 110
- Source of wealth: Building supplies
As a child, Diane Hendricks spent her days on a dairy farm. Once married, she and her husband, Ken Hendricks, founded ABC Supply, one of the largest wholesale distributors of roofing, siding, and windows in the country.
Hendricks has run the company solo since her husband died in 2007, donating millions of dollars to nonprofits in her home state of Wisconsin every year. The company has over 900 branch locations and had $20.2 billion in 2025 revenues.
In July 2025, she began starring on the new A&E show "Betting on Beloit" alongside her daughter, Konya Hendricks Schuh. In June 2026, Forbes named her America's richest self-made woman for the ninth consecutive year.
JORG CARSTENSEN // Getty Images
6 / 15#10. MacKenzie Scott
- Net worth: $27.9 billion
- Worldwide rank: 83
- Source of wealth: Amazon
MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, signed the Giving Pledge in 2019, committing to donate most of her wealth to philanthropic causes. Scott was awarded a 4% share of the online retailer Amazon upon the finalization of her divorce from Bezos in 2019.
As of December 2025, Scott has donated more than $26 billion to more than 2,700 nonprofits through her philanthropic platform, Yield Giving, including more than $7 billion in 2025 alone.
Her charitable efforts got renewed attention in June 2025, offering a stark contrast to Bezos' opulent wedding to new wife, Lauren Sánchez. In late 2025, she became America's third most generous philanthropist of all time, behind only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.
T. Schneider // Shutterstock
7 / 15#9. Lyndal Stephens Greth and family
- Net worth: $28.8 billion
- Worldwide rank: 80
- Source of wealth: Oil & gas
Lyndal Stephens Greth's father, Autry Stephens, founded the Texas-based oil firm Endeavor Energy Resources in 1979. Before he passed away in 2024, Autry negotiated the $26 billion sale of Endeavor Energy Resources to Diamondback Energy.
As a result, Greth now owns more than a third of Diamondback's shares. A member of Endeavor's board since 2013, she took over as chair after her father's death.
Denise Truscello // Getty Images
8 / 15#8. Miriam Adelson and family
- Net worth: $30.2 billion
- Worldwide rank: 76
- Source of wealth: Casinos
An Israeli-American physician who focuses on addiction, Miriam Adelson is the widow of Sheldon Adelson, the founder of the Las Vegas Sands casino company. Upon Sheldon Adelson's death in 2021, she became the primary owner of the company.
Adelson is a dedicated philanthropist who focuses much of her attention on the Dr. Miriam & Sheldon G. Adelson Clinic for Drug Abuse Treatment & Research, which helps treat people with opioid use disorder.
In late 2023, she bought a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks NBA team from Mark Cuban. She's also a prominent backer of President Donald Trump and donated more than $90 million to his 2024 campaign.
360b // Shutterstock
9 / 15#7. Elaine Marshall and family
- Net worth: $32.2 billion
- Worldwide rank: 73
- Source of wealth: Koch, Inc.
The daughter-in-law of businessman J. Howard Marshall II, Elaine Marshall, and her two sons inherited a sizable stake in the corporation Koch, Inc. after Elaine's husband died in 2006. She and her sons still retain an estimated 16% of Koch, Inc. today.
Elaine has also served as North Carolina's Secretary of State since 1997, winning her reelection bid in November 2024. Her son, E. Pierce Marshall Jr., runs the investment firm Élevage Capital Management.
Christian Liewig - Corbis/Getty Images
10 / 15#6. Melinda French Gates
- Net worth: $34.3 billion
- Worldwide rank: 69
- Source of wealth: Microsoft, investments
A former high-level employee at Microsoft Corporation, Melinda French Gates founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 with her then-husband, Bill Gates. In 2021, Melinda French Gates became a billionaire in her own right after Bill Gates transferred $2.4 billion worth of stock to her amid their divorce proceedings.
In 2024, Melinda resigned from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to focus on Pivotal Ventures, her venture capital firm that invests in woman-owned businesses. Forbes estimates her settlement from the 2021 divorce was $25 billion. In January 2026, Bill Gates donated another $2 billion to her foundations, bringing his total contributions to $10.8 billion.
Eugene Gologursky // Getty Images
11 / 15#5. Marilyn Simons and family
- Net worth: $36.6 billion
- Worldwide rank: 62
- Source of wealth: Hedge funds
Marilyn Simons was married to hedge fund manager and investor Jim Simons until his death in 2024, at which point she inherited his approximately $31 billion net worth. She and Jim had long been active philanthropists, gifting hundreds of millions of dollars to educational initiatives via the Simons Foundation.
Launched in 1994 and still chaired by Marilyn, this nonprofit has $4.5 billion in assets. All told, the Simons family has given more than $10 billion to causes including Math for America and autism research.
Drew Angerer // Getty Images
12 / 15#4. Abigail Johnson
- Net worth: $41.6 billion
- Worldwide rank: 48
- Source of wealth: Fidelity
Abigail Johnson has served as the CEO of Fidelity Investments since 2014 and as chairman since 2016. Her grandfather, Edward Johnson II, founded the Boston-based mutual fund giant in 1946. She owns an estimated 29% stake in the firm, which as of December 2025 manages discretionary assets totaling $7.1 trillion.
Johnson has embraced cryptocurrencies, and in 2018, Fidelity launched a platform allowing institutional investors to custody and trade bitcoin, ether, and litecoin. The Johnson family has frequently contributed to Boston-area nonprofits, with donations going to Harvard, Historic New England, and the Institute of Contemporary Art.
Pool // Getty Images
13 / 15#3. Jacqueline Mars
- Net worth: $50.3 billion
- Worldwide rank: 36
- Source of wealth: Candy, pet food
Jacqueline Mars is the aunt of the four Mars sisters who also appear on the larger Forbes list. She owns an estimated one-third of her grandfather's candy company and worked for it for nearly 20 years, serving on the board until 2016.
Her son Stephen Badger is on Mars' board of directors. In December 2025, Mars completed its roughly $36 billion acquisition of Kellanova, the maker of Pringles and Cheez-It. Mars serves on the board of the National Archives and was formerly on the board of the Washington National Opera.
Rabbani and Solimene Photography // Getty Images
14 / 15#2. Julia Koch and family
- Net worth: $84.6 billion
- Worldwide rank: 23
- Source of wealth: Koch, Inc.
Julia Koch inherited a 42% stake in Koch, Inc. when her husband, David Koch, died in 2019. The duo met on a blind date in 1991 and married in 1996. The former fashion assistant and her late husband have donated $10 million to Mount Sinai Medical Center and Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, respectively.
In June 2024, Koch and her three children paid nearly $700 million for 15% of BSE Global, which owns the NBA's Brooklyn Nets and WNBA's New York Liberty. In September 2025, she struck a deal to buy a 10% stake in the New York Giants NFL team, valuing the franchise at more than $10 billion.
Rick T. Wilking // Getty Images
15 / 15#1. Alice Walton
- Net worth: $119.3 billion
- Worldwide rank: 14
- Source of wealth: Walmart
The only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, Alice Walton inherited a huge portion of the company upon her father's death in 1992. A member of the richest nonroyal family in the world, Walton has spent very little time working for the family business, instead focusing on curating artwork.
In 2011, she opened her own art museum in Arkansas, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which features works from greats like Warhol, Rockwell and Rothko. In July 2025, Walton welcomed the inaugural class of students to the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine in Bentonville, Arkansas, after spending at least $250 million on the project.
In September 2025, she became the first American woman to reach a $100 billion net worth. She remains the richest woman in the world, according to Forbes.
Story editing by Cu Fleshman and Louis Peitzman. Copy editing by Paris Close.
