World's Richest Families of All Time

Who are the richest families in the world?

25 Richest Families in the World

If there is one hard truth about our species, it’s that wealth isn’t distributed even remotely close to equally. For as long as humans have used currency in exchange for goods and services, there have been those who, fairly or otherwise, manage to horde quite a pile of legal tender.

While the families of long-forgotten kingdoms and empires were indeed wealthy, their stockpile of coins was nothing compared to the 20th and 21st century titans of riches. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO, is worth more than $180 billion, making him the richest person in the history of the world. But let us not forget that Bezos is “new money,” and the self-made tech titan didn’t come from ancestral wealth. Likewise, his fellow Seattleite Bill Gates, whose mountain of cash is valued at $118 billion.

Let us then instead look at the “family” wealth that is owned by the 25 richest families in the world, who collectively have an absolutely mind-boggling $1.4 trillion.

25. The Lee Family

Country: South Korea

Industry: Technology

Estimated Worth: $29 billion

* Sources include Business Insider, Visual Capitalist and, of course, Forbes, whose annual list of the wealthiest persons is must-see reading for those families “stuck” at 26 and below.

Their Story

Have you ever bought anything from Samsung? If so, you have expanded the healthy bottom line of South Korea’s Lee family, which owns the cellphone maker and several other subsidiaries. But it wasn’t always blue-plate specials for the Lees: Business Insider reports that in 1938, Lee Byung-chul opened a dry goods store with just $25.

Over decades of hard work, the family then expanded into hospitality, electronics, insurance, advertising and even weapons-making. Lee Byung-chul’s initial $25 investment had stormed upward to a cool $529.5 billion in company assets by 2014. His descendents continue to live the good life.

24. The Prtizker Family

Country: United States

Industry: Hospitality

Estimated Worth: $29.6 billion

Their Story

The Hyatt hotel brand is recognized the world over, but what is lesser known is that there is no Mr. or Mrs. Hyatt. Rather, the first Hyatt House was opened in the 1950s by entrepreneurs Jack Dyer Crouch and a guy named, yep, Hyatt Robert von Dehn. Their hotel was situated just down the street from the Los Angeles airport, and brothers Jay and Donald Pritzker saw big bucks in expanding their airport-adjacent model.

The Pritzkers bought von Dehn and Crouch’s property, and promptly took the idea of putting hotels near runways on the road. Nowadays, von Dehn’s unusual first name adorns thousands of buildings around the world thanks to Pritzker’s vision — most of them now far, far away from noisy airports.

23. The Kwok Family

Country: Hong Kong (China)

Industry: Real Estate

Estimated Worth: $30.4 billion

Their Story

Hong Kong is among the most expensive cities in the world given how dense and compact this world center of trade is, and those who hustled in the real estate game here have made out like bandits. None more so than Kwok Tak-Seng, who became the wealthiest realtor in the formerly semi-autonomous region, which officially reverted to Chinese control in 1997 at the end of Britain’s hundred-year lease.

However, even with $30 billion in inheritance, Kwok’s sons Walter, Raymond and Thomas still weren’t happy, and the siblings have been squabbling ever since their father’s 1990 death. In fact, younger bros Raymond and Thomas kicked eldest sibling Walter out of the family following Walter’s kidnapping (no kidding!). Walter died in 2018, but life has been far from easy for Raymond and Thomas, who were arrested on bribery charges in 2012. Sheesh!

22. The Ferraro Family

Country: Italy

Industry: Consumer Goods

Estimated Worth: $30.5 billion

Their Story

Scooping spoonfuls of Nutella is one of the guiltiest pleasures there is, and for that, we at least partially have to thank Michele Ferrero, who in the 1940s was merely looking for a way to expand the profits of the family chocolate shop.

Ferrero’s namesake company still makes Nutella but also such other sweet treats as Tic Tacs, Kinger and Mon Chéri. Sure, maybe some of them aren’t well known on this side of the Atlantic, but they’ve sold enough sugar over the decades to make the Ferreros Italy’s wealthiest family.

21. The Chearavanont Family

Country: Thailand

Industry: Agriculture, Food, Manufacturing, Real Estate, Commerce

Estimated Worth: $30.7 billion

Their Story

Thai entrepreneur Chia Ek Chor opened the doors of the Charoen Pokphand Group in 1921. A century later, that humble little enterprise is one of the world’s biggest businesses, not only enjoying a healthy segment of the Asian food market, but also controlling interests in such well-known brands as Honda, Heineken, 7-Eleven and the True Corporation.

Several of Chia Ek Chor’s descendents still run the business, including his son Dhanin and Dhanin’s own sons, Suphachai and Soopakij.

20. The Newhouse Family

Country: United States

Industry: Publishing

Estimated Worth: $31 billion

Their Story

It’s sad to admit, but once upon a time, publishing was a decent way to generate wealth if executed correctly. Samuel Irving “S.I.” Newhouse started out Advance Publications in 1922, and many, many purchases, acquisitions and good decisions later, the company sees billions of dollars in annual revenue, thanks in no small part to holdings in its portfolio, including The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, newspapers in more than 20 cities and controlling interests in Discovery Communications and Reddit.

S.I.’s sons Samuel and Donald continue to be involved in the family business despite being in their 80s. Several of their own children also continue making their family proud.

19. The Rausing Family

Country: Sweden/United Kingdom

Industry: Packaging

Estimated Worth: $32.9 billion

Their Story

In the 1920s, Swedish businessman Ruben Andersson took a chance in the packaging industry and was soon doing well enough to buy out several partners. He even changed his surname to Rausing, and by the 1950s had founded the food-packaging firm Tetra Pak.

Ruben’s son, Hans, moved to the United Kingdom in the 1980s, partly to avoid hefty Swedish taxes, but when he stepped down from leading Tetra Pak, he still made out well by selling his share of his father’s business to his brother, Gad, for $7 billion.

But with great wealth often comes great tragedy: Hans’ wife, Eva, died of an apparent drug overdose in 2012, after having been previously arrested in 2008 for trying to bring crack cocaine and heroin into London’s U.S. Embassy.

18. The Cox Family

Country: United States

Industry: Communications

Estimated Worth: $33.1 billion

Their Story

If William Randolph Hearst had been born a century later than he was, it’s likely the early-20th century newspaper baron would have expanded into cable and other mass media for the digital age. Hearst, born in 1863, was followed into the news industry by James M. Cox (born 1898), who started out purchasing his hometown Dayton, Ohio’s Evening News.

Like Hearst, Cox acquired more and more media outlets during his lifetime, and the family continues to do so. Today, Cox Communications employs more than 20,000 people in its cable TV, broadband internet and other divisions. Several of James M. Cox’s grandchildren still work at the company and divide the massive fortune among themselves.

17. The Quandt Family

Country: Germany

Industry: Automotive

Estimated Worth: $34.7 billion

Their Story

There’s an axiom that behind every great fortune is a great crime. While Bayerische Motoren Werke (better known as BMW) was around long before the Second World War, their plants in Munich, which manufactured planes and motors for Hitler, were heavily bombed by the Allies. After the Nazis surrendered, BMW nearly went under before entrepreneur Herbert Werner Quandt took the business in a new direction. Quandt family members made out like gangbusters, and nowadays, owning a “Beemer” certainly confers a sense of status.

However, investigators later discovered that Quandt and his father took advantage of slave labor to help the Nazi war effort, and the family has since vowed to make amends by putting some of its enormous fortune into education about those horrible years.

16. The Van Damme, de Spoelberch and de Mevius Families

Country: Belgium

Industry: Beer, Liquor

Estimated Worth: $36.8 billion

Their Story

In the 1850s, a German immigrant named Adolphus Busch and his father-in-law, Eberhard Anheuser, set up a brewery in St. Louis, a town that was heavy with other new Americans of German heritage — as well as a steady water supply in the Mississippi River. Busch was worth $60 million when he died in 1913, and his descendents kept right on brewing. Even Prohibition couldn’t sink the operation, which turned to “near beer” and other consumer goods, but since 1933, it’s been back to pumping out millions of gallons of beer annually.

In 2008, Anheuser-Busch merged with the Belgian beverage giant InBev, meaning that every bottle of Budweiser purchased in America sends dollars overseas, with the Van Damme, de Spoelberch and de Mevius families smiling all the way to the bank.

15. The Johnson Family

Country: United States

Industry: Consumer Products, Financial Services

Estimated Worth: $37.3 billion

Their Story

The Johnson family owns many products that are household words, including Windex, Shout, Saran wrap, Ziploc bags and Glade Air Freshener. Samuel Curtis “S.C.” Johnson opened up his firm in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1886, and the fifth generation of his family continues to manage the empire, with Herbert Fisk Johnson III serving as chairman and CEO.

In addition to consumer products, the Johnson family’s portfolio includes an entity that makes outdoor craft and attire as well as another division devoted to wealth management.

14. The Cargill and MacMillan Families

Country: United States

Industry: Agribusiness

Estimated Worth: $38.1 billion

Their Story

In yet another immigrant success story, Scotsman W.W. Cargill’s grain storage business in Minneapolis went blockbuster as westward expansion drove up demand to ship such products ever-farther west. More grains planted in the Midwest meant more business for Cargill, and today, his eponymous company brings in more than $100 billion in annual revenue.

According to Forbes, only six of Cargill’s descendants still sit on the company’s board. However, a whopping 14 of the Cargill-MacMillan clan are billionaires, ranking them tops in the world as the family with the most billionaires. That’s a helluva lot of bread!

13. The Mulliez Family

Country: France

Industry: Sporting Goods

Estimated Worth: $38.4 billion

Their Story

One of France’s wealthiest families has its hands in restaurants, electrical appliances, retail, sports, clothing and tons of other economic sectors. The Mulliez clan largely made their fortune with well-known French sporting goods lines like Décathlon and the Auchan department stores. The empire now consists of more than 7,000 stores in 30 countries.

But nowhere is their power felt more than at home in France. In fact, one estimate found that approximately 10 percent of all the money French families spend on home products goes directly to the Mulliez family.

12. The Hoffmann and Oeri Families

Country: Switzerland

Industry: Healthcare

Estimated Worth: $38.8 billion

Their Story

The healthcare company Roche was founded in Basel, Switzerland, in 1898 by Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche, with an aim to increase home health remedies. By the mid-1910s, the company had expanded across Europe and into America. In the 21st century, the pharma giant retails in traditional medicine as well as funding research into DNA components of illness and remedies.

La Roche’s descendants have bought up many, many brands over the years, and Roche continues to be one of the world’s largest players in pharma and vitamins.

11. The Thomson Family

Country: Canada

Industry: Publishing, Communications

Estimated Worth: $40.6 billion

Their Story

Roy Thomson also took a page out of the book of Hearst by purchasing the Timmins Daily Press in Ontario as an upstart businessman. By the 1950s, he owned nearly two-dozen papers and had founded the Canadian Weekly Review as a way to serve Canadians who had emigrated to the United Kingdom. Thomson himself moved to Scotland and kept buying up papers and media outlets until his death in 1976.

The Thomson family has continued its empire by purchasing Reuters and forming the Thomas Reuters megacorporation. Today, Roy’s grandson David serves as chairman of the company and is also chair of Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper. The family also owns hotel and financial services firms.

10. The Albrecht Family

Country: Germany

Industry: Consumer Goods

Estimated Worth: $41 billion

Their Story

Karl Hans Albrecht and his brother, Theo, may have been among the first people to bank big on big-time discounts. In the wake of World War II, the German brothers took over their mother’s thrift store and expanded Aldi (short for “Albrecht discount”) to thousands of locations in Europe and around the world. The family even bought the Trader Joe’s chain in 1979, giving them a lock on a healthy segment of the grocery market.

Business Insider reports that the Albrechts don’t live ostentatiously and rarely give interviews, but what they do share with many other uber-rich families is a penchant for infighting over the family’s massive resources.

9. The Boehringer and Von Baumbach Families

Country: Germany

Industry: Healthcare

Estimated Worth: $45.7 billion

Their Story

Now we’re getting into the really, really, really serious money. In 1885, a humble druggist named Albert Boehringer started a company that sold tartar and other such dental adhesives. Over 130 years later, the Boehringer Ingelheim group is the second-largest pharmaceutical company in Germany and one of the 20 largest in the world — employing some 50,000 people.

Albert’s great-grandson, Hubertus von Baumbach, runs the operation, but little else is known about Hubertus and his kin, who are known to be press-shy and extremely private. What is known, however, is the firm raked in an impressive 19 billion euros ($22.5 billion) in 2019 alone, and in 2020, the von Baumbach and Boehringer dynasty is putting some of that enormous financial muscle into research on a vaccine for COVID-19.

8. The Johnson Family

Country: United States

Industry: Financial Services

Estimated Worth: $46.3 billion

Their Story

Not to be confused with the “poorer” S.C. Johnson family of Wisconsin (No. 15 on this list), the Johnson dynasty of Boston has been the ruler of financial services behemoth Fidelity Investments for three generations. The company was founded in Massachusetts' capital and New England’s financial center in 1946 by Edward C. Johnson II. Son Edward III succeeded him but stepped down from the day-to-day operations in 2014. While Edward III still maintains his seat as chairman of the board, his daughter Abigail has her pop’s old job as CEO. She has continued to keep the firm in the chips with an estimated $6.9 billion in revenue last year alone.

Forbes reports that the Johnsons collectively own 49 percent of the world’s second-largest mutual fund. We shudder to imagine the summer home for whoever owns the other 51 percent.

7. The Wertheimer Family

Country: France

Industry: Consumer Products

Estimated Worth: $54.4 billion

Their Story

It’s not surprising if you maybe haven’t heard of Pierre Wertheimer, but perhaps the name Coco Chanel rings a bell? During the period between the two world wars, Parisian designer Chanel was trying to make her mark on the fashion industry, and it was Wertheimer who took a chance and invested in her brand. Chanel herself passed away in 1971, but her name lives on thanks to the Wertheimer family’s studious work and protection of its cash cow.

Wertheimer’s grandsons Gerard and Alain are at the helm of Chanel today, with the worldwide label raking in $12.3 billion just last year.

6. The Dumas Family

Country: France

Industry: Consumer Products

Estimated Worth: $54.4 billion

Their Story

As we just learned from the Wertheimers, fashion and luxury are big, big business — but not even the Chanel empire can stack up its mile-high tower of money as high as the Dumas family, which owns the uber-chic fashion brand Hermès. Thierry Hermes started out by making horseback gear for France’s nobility in the 19th century, and while the brand did well, it might not have done spectacularly had not Hermes’ descendent Jean-Louis Dumas taken Hermès onto the world’s stage in the 1970s.

The family is still involved in shepherding the 200-year-old fashion line, which took in 6.8 billion euros ($8 billion) in 2019. Must make for some awkward chatter when the Dumas and Wertheimers run into one another at the caviar bar.

5. The Ambani Family

Country: India

Industry: Consumer Products

Estimated Worth: $81.3 billion

Their Story

There’s a reason oil is also known as black gold. Just ask India’s Ambani family, who are sitting on more than $80 billion thanks to striking it very, very, very rich by mining the earth’s lifeblood. Dhirubhai Ambani started out as a gas station attendant, but rather than accept that as his lot, Ambani founded Reliance Commercial Corporation. Now known as Reliance Industries, the energy Goliath is run by one of Ambani’s children, Mukesh Ambani.

Business Insider reports that when not typing up reports, the younger Ambani enjoys unwinding at his 400,000-square-foot, 27-story palace. Surely, he must get lost in there!

4. The Al Saud family

Country: Saudi Arabia

Industry: Oil

Estimated Worth: $95 billion

Their Story

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was established by Abdulaziz Al Saud in 1932, and less than a century later, it’s one of the world’s wealthiest nations thanks to, you guessed it, oil. The royal family shares the wealth of the oil bonanza among its members — the 35-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (or MBS, as he is known) personally has over $1 billion to his personal fortune.

Such gross wealth has naturally led to some rather ostentatious spending among the Saudi royal family, who have shelled out for gold and diamond cars, golden toilets and even a chartered flight for falcons — yes, falcons.

3. The Koch Family

Country: United States

Industry: Energy, Manufacturing

Estimated Worth: $109.7 billion

Their Story

The three richest families in the world are all American, and the “hardest-up” of that trio are the Kochs of Kansas. Brothers David and Charles Koch (pronounced “coke”) took their father’s oil business into the stratosphere, to the point that the family business generates more than $115 billion in revenue per annum. David Koch died in 2019, leaving his widow, Julia, with $53 billion in inheritance — making her one of the world’s wealthiest women.

The Koch brothers were never shy about spreading their wealth around to influence politicians, freely donating ungodly sums to push deregulation and other causes that were near and dear to their desire to, well, make more money.

2. The Mars Family

Country: United States

Industry: Candy, Other Consumer Goods

Estimated Worth: $120 billion

Their Story

Mars Inc. makes all manner of candy goodness, including Milky Way, Twix, M&M’s, Snickers and Mars Bars, named for the family whose incredible fortune was built on the backs of so much refined sugar. Forbes reports that six members of the Virginia-based Mars clan are on their list of the 400 richest people in the world.

With America’s appetite for candy not likely to dissipate anytime soon, they will continue to be among the richest families in the world for some time.

1. The Walton Family

Country: United States

Industry: Retail

Estimated Worth: $215 billion

Their Story

If you’ve bought even a pair of socks at Walmart, you have in a small way increased the massive, massive fortune amassed by the Walton family. Sam Walton started out with a quaint “Walton’s 5-10” shop on the town square of Bentonville, Arkansas, in the 1950s. It’s still there as the facade of the Walmart Museum, which traces Walton’s arc from small-town shopkeeper to the undisputed king of American retail. Walmart is so big that in some areas of the country, it handles an astonishing 50 percent of all grocery sales, to say nothing of everything else they retail thanks to Walton’s “category killer” model.

By the time of his death in 1992, Walton was worth an astonishing $8.6 billion — peanuts compared to the current family fortune of $215 BILLION thanks to the Walmart brand having gone global. But rather than horde it all, members of the Walton clan are putting some of their money back into the community. The family has collected so much art that Alice Walton put up the funds to build the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville to share it with the public. And the Walton Family Foundation continues to fund charitable endeavors the world over.

Think you can crack the list of the top 25 richest families yourself someday? Well, be like many of these onetime small-time entrepreneurs and get cracking!