W ealth begets wealth. Just ask Alice Walton, who again ranks as the nation’s richest woman on the annual Forbes 400 list —her fourth straight year at the top, and 11th out of the past 12.

The only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton (d. 1992), she is $12 billion richer than a year ago on the back of a 10% hike in the retailer’s stock, amid e-commerce and membership growth and the expansion of ultra-fast delivery service. And Walton is only widening the gap between her and America’s second richest woman, Koch, Inc. heiress Julia Koch, whose fortune grew by $3.4 billion over the past year—but who is now $33.4 billion poorer than Walton, up from a $24.8 billion gap a year ago.

Overall, Walton, 76, ranks as the 13th-richest person in America, right behind her brothers Rob Walton (estimated fortune: $132 billion) and Jim Walton ($128 billion). Together the siblings, along with two heirs of their brother John Walton (d. 2005) and charitable trusts in his name, share a 44% stake in Walmart. Rob Walton retired from Walmart’s board in 2024 after more than four decades as a director, including more than 20 years as chairman. Jim Walton still chairs the family’s $26 billion (assets) Arvest Bank Group.

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Alice Walton’s path to becoming America’s wealthiest woman began in 1953, when her shop owner father shrewdly gave 80% of his ownership of the family holding company to his children nine years before opening the first Walmart, sidestepping a huge future estate tax bill. Alice graduated from Trinity University in Texas in 1971 with a business administration degree. She worked briefly at Walmart as a buyer of children’s clothes, but eventually shifted her focus to curating art. She chaired the family’s Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in their hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas for a decade before retiring from that role in 2021. The museum's permanent collection focuses on American art from the past five centuries. Notable works include Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter , Georgia O’Keeffe’s Radiator Building-Night, New York and a 1797 portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart. Walton is credited with founding the museum, though nearly all of the $1.6 billion it cost to open the facility in 2011 came from trusts in the names of her late brother John and her mother Helen Walton (d. 2007).

As Walmart stock has soared in the decades since Sam died, the family has gradually sold or gifted tens of billions of dollars to keep their stake below 50% despite the retail giant’s enormous stock buybacks. Walton has funneled some of her profits into philanthropy of her own, which she has ramped up over the past decade, pouring more than $6 billion into five family charitable foundations that have doled out more than an estimated $2 billion of her funds through 2024 (the year of the family’s nonprofits’ most recent tax returns). Through her Art Bridges Foundation, Walton has spent more than $500 million acquiring and loaning out works of American art to more than 400 museums across the country since the nonprofit’s founding in 2016. She has also contributed at least $250 million to the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine in Bentonville, which welcomed its inaugural class of 48 four-year M.D. students in 2025. That same year, Alice and other members of the family announced that they would build a new STEM university on the site of Walmart’s former home office in town. The school plans to welcome its first class of students in 2029.