As America’s 250th anniversary approaches, Forbes is celebrating our own version of founding fathers (and mothers): the entrepreneurs behind what have become the largest family fortunes in the country. Most built one (or more) of the nation’s most successful businesses. Many, though not all, of these companies are still owned and run by the descendants of their founders all these years later. That includes everyone from the Hughes family (estimated fortune: $14.7 billion) behind Public Storage, who are now in their third generation, to the oldest clan on the list, the Du Ponts ($22 billion), who founded what became the chemical giant bearing their name in 1802, and are now in their ninth generation.

Forbes first began tracking individual billionaire wealth in 1918, when oil baron and future philanthropist John D. Rockefeller (d. 1937) was featured as the world’s first and only billionaire in Forbes Magazine. Over the last 13 years, we’ve also periodically ranked America’s richest families, including the Rockefellers, who are now in their seventh generation and tied for 45th on this year’s list, with an estimated $12.5 billion fortune. The cutoff for our first ever ranking of the country’s wealthiest clans in 2014 was just $1 billion. But with billionaire wealth skyrocketing to unprecedented heights (Elon Musk briefly became the first trillionaire this month after all), Forbes raised the table stakes for our families list to $10 billion in 2024.

Forbes found a record 54 multi-generational clans on our second-ever ranking of America’s Decabillionaire Families, up from 45 on that first 2024 list. ( The complete list is published here ). The combined net worth of this year’s group is $1.9 trillion, nearly $600 billion more than the total two years ago. All but five of these families are already in at least their fourth generation. These clans, some of which have hundreds of family members (or thousands, in the case of the Du Ponts), are behind everything from M&M’s and Chick-fil-A to Windex and Orkin pest control to the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Ten newcomers debut on our 2026 ranking. They include Carrollton, Georgia-based cable and wire manufacturer Southwire’s Richards family (estimated fortune: $13.1 billion); the heirs to the late information technology pioneer turned two-time independent presidential candidate Ross Perot, Sr. ($12.8 billion) and the Lockton family ($10 billion) behind the Kansas City, Missouri-based insurance brokerage bearing their name. Also appearing on the list for the first time are the biggest winners of 2025’s biggest IPO: Northfield, Illinois-based medical supplies giant Medline’s founding Mills family ($29.6 billion).

Only one family, Houston-based Westlake Corporation’s Chao clan , dropped out of the ranks, as their mostly publicly traded fortune fell by $4.9 billion to an estimated $9.3 billion over the past two years. Just seven other families from the 2024 list got poorer. The biggest loser among that remaining group was the Brown family behind Louisville, Kentucky-based Brown-Forman Corporation, the publicly traded maker of Jack Daniel’s whiskey, whose net worth dropped by $5.8 billion, to an estimated $10.7 billion. Other well-known families that missed the cut include the Dolans, the owners of the New York Knicks, who ended the franchise’s 53-year championship drought in June.

The biggest winner by far has been America’s richest family ever since we first began tracking family fortunes in 2014. The descendants of Walmart founder Sam Walton (d. 1992) and his brother Bud (d. 1995) have seen their fortune soar by an estimated $253 billion— to $520 billion—in just two years, as their Bentonville, Arkansas-based retail giant’s stock has skyrocketed by 117%. That means if Sam Walton were still alive today, he’d likely control the second-largest fortune on earth after Elon Musk.

The next biggest gainer was the family behind Wichita, Kansas-based conglomerate Koch, Inc. (formerly Koch Industries), whose fortune grew by $41 billion over the past two years, to an estimated $157 billion, boosting the Kochs from No. 3 to No. 2 on this year’s list. Led by the son of founder Fred Koch (d. 1967), 90-year-old chairman and co-CEO Charles Koch , the Kochs swapped spots with the heirs to the Mars, Inc. candy, snack and petfood empire, who took the No. 2 ranking from the Kochs on the 2024 list. The Mars family’s net worth also increased, by $12 billion, to an estimated $129 billion. No other American family has a 12-figure fortune.

The decabillionaire families on this year’s ranking hail from 25 states and cities ranging from Boise, Idaho to Youngstown, Ohio to Portland, Maine. New York City is the most popular hometown with seven multi-generational families worth at least $10 billion, followed by Atlanta and Chicago (four each). In addition to the Rockefellers, the Big Apple birthed another storied dynasty on this year’s list that dates back to the 19th century: the descendants of media baron William Randolf Hearst (d. 1951), who are worth an estimated $21.8 billion.

Here is Forbes ’ definitive ranking of the 54 richest multi-generational families in America.

In compiling our ranking of America’s richest multi-generational families, Forbes excluded individual billionaires who are credited with the entire family fortune and appear on The Forbes World’s Billionaires list. For each clan, we counted the number of generations from the family’s patriarch to his or her youngest descendants (including children under the age of 18). Estimated fortunes were calculated using stock prices from June 22, 2026.

Edited By: Matt Durot and Andrea Murphy

Additional Editing: Chase Peterson-Withorn

Reporters: Asia Nicole Alexander, Sofia Chierchio, Grace Chung, Martina Di Licosa, Sam Ellefson, Monica Hunter-Hart, Brandon Kochodin, Phoebe Liu, Simone Melvin, Idon Nkanga, Alicia Park, Chloe Sorvino, Justin Teitelbaum, Giacomo Tognini, Hank Tucker, Gigi Zamora