- Three heirs to the Walmart fortune are close to becoming centibillionaires.
- Jim, Rob, and Alice Walton are now worth more than $92 billion each as Walmart stock soars.
Three Walmart heirs could soon be worth $100 billion each — and together they're already richer than the world's wealthiest person, Elon Musk.
The three surviving children of the late Jim Walton — Jim, Rob, and Alice — command net worths between $92 billion and $95 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Their combined wealth stood at $280 billion at Thursday's market close — a figure that dwarfs Musk's $239 billion fortune and is roughly equal to Berkshire Hathaway's cash pile at the end of June.
The trio of Waltons have each added about $22 billion to their net worths this year, thanks to Walmart stock surging 39% since the start of January to close at a record $73 on Thursday.
The dynastic heirs to the Walmart fortune rank 16th, 17th, and 18th on Bloomberg's rich list. If they cross the $100 billion mark in wealth, they'll join an elite club of centibillionaires that includes Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett.
Jim, Rob, and Alice's wealth largely stems from the Walmart shares they inherited from their father. They each own about 12% of the nearly $600 billion company through a family trust, and have each collected more than $15 billion from stock sales and dividends over the years, per Bloomberg.
Include Lukas ($33 billion) and Christy ($14.8 billion) — the son and widow of Sam's fourth child, the late John T. Walton — and the wealth of retail's royal family approaches $320 billion, a figure larger than the market capitalizations of Bank of America ($303 billion) or Coca-Cola ($296 billion).
The Waltons have enjoyed rapid growth in their personal wealth thanks to Walmart stock, which has roughly tripled since 2016. The retailer has benefited from resilient consumer spending as well as investor optimism, now fueled by slowing inflation and waning recession fears as interest rates are poised to drop in the weeks ahead.