The rich list

8 Austin billionaires land on Forbes' 2026 list of richest Americans

Michael Dell is on the list once again.

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Semafor World Economy

The richest billionaires in America have a collective worth of $8 trillion in 2026, a staggering $1.4 trillion increase since last year, says Forbes. And a Polish-American billionaire residing in Austin with ties to Elon Musk and SpaceX has become one of the richest people in the nation.

Venture capitalist and entrepreneur Luke Nosek has made his debut as one of the America's richest residents for 2026, according to the just-released Forbes 400.

The annual Forbes 400 list is a definitive ranking of the wealthiest Americans, using interviews, financial data, and documentation provided by billionaires and their companies. In all, 43 billionaires across Texas made it on the 2026 list, and eight are based in Austin.

Nosek, 51, cofounded online payments company PayPal in 1998, and two venture capital firms, called Founders Fund (2005) and Gigafund (2017). Gigafund is based in Austin and has invested $1 billion into SpaceX, the aerospace manufacturing company owned by the world's richest billionaire, Elon Musk.

"[Gigafund] has also made smaller bets on other Musk-founded companies like Neuralink and the Boring Company," Forbes wrote in Nosek's profile. "Nosek personally owns 0.2 percent of SpaceX, which went public at a $1.8 trillion valuation in June."

Nosek made his Forbes 400 debut with an estimated net worth of $5.5 billion.

Musk, 55, leads as the richest person in America and the richest person in Austin. His net worth has more than doubled in the last year, from $428 billion to $908 billion.

Here's how the rest of Austin's billionaires fared on this year's list:

Dell Technologies CEO and chairman Michael Dell: ranks 4th nationally with an estimated net worth of $263 billion. Last year: $129 billion.
Venture capitalist Robert F. Smith: ranks 142nd nationally with an estimated net worth of $10.9 billion. Last year: $10 billion
Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia: ranks 160th nationally with an estimated net worth of $9.7 billion. Last year: $8 billion.
Software investor Joseph Liemandt: ranks 224th nationally with an estimated net worth of $7.6 billion. Last year: $6.6 billion.
Tech entrepreneur Thai Lee: ranks 233rd nationally with an estimated net worth of $7.4 billion. Last year: $7.5 billion.
Tito's Vodka baron Bert Beveridge: ties for 302nd nationally with an estimated net worth of $5.7 billion. Last year: $5.6 billion.

Elsewhere in Central Texas, Temple-based billionaire Drayton McLane, Jr. ranked as the 375th richest American this year with a net worth of $4.6 billion, up from $4.1 billion in 2025. McLane, 90, is the chairman of holding company McLane Group.

Absent from this year's list is venture capitalist Jim Breyer. Breyer, 65, returned to the Forbes 400 list in 2025 with an estimated net worth of $3.8 billion. His net worth is currently estimated at $3.2 billion, which — shockingly — makes him one of the 590 American billionaires that are "too poor to make the cut" this year, according to Forbes.

"With the AI and data center boom in full swing and the U.S. stock market near an all-time high, it now takes a record $4.4 billion to rank among the nation’s 400 wealthiest people," the publication said. "That’s $600 million more than last year and $2.7 billion more than a decade ago."

forbes 400 forbes billionaires richest americans austin

texas-themed great gatsby

Lost novel about Texas' 'hedonistic' elite revived by university press

The Inheritors by Phillip Atlee, TCU Press

Courtesy of TCU Press

The novel was originally published in 1940, and nearly vanished after it caused a scandal among Fort Worth's wealthy elite.

A Fort Worth author's scathing debut novel dissecting entitled heirs of the city's oil tycoons and cattle barons — which was subsequently suppressed by the same wealthy society — is returning to the spotlight in 2026, more than 85 years after its initial publication.

The Inheritors by Philip Atlee will be formally published by Texas Christian University's imprint TCU Press on September 15.

The novel is set in the mid-1930s, following two sons of the local elite class and members of Fort Worth’s River Crest Country Club. These individuals, George Jimble and Cavin Jarvis, are described as educated and well-groomed, yet are "utterly without purpose" and spend their days "drinking, grifting, and burning through their parents’ fortunes out of boredom and contempt."

According to a TCU Press release, the book's revival comes "at a moment when its central themes — inherited privilege, the moral bankruptcy of the ultra-rich, and the aimlessness of those born to wealth without purpose — feel less like period detail and more like a mirror."

The Inheritors by Phillip Atlee, TCU Press The Inheritors will be published September 15.Courtesy of TCU Press

James Young Phillips published the book under his pseudonym in 1940, at just 25 years old. Reviewers compared the story to the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, and it received similar comparisons to the works of Ernest Hemingway, John O’Hara, and James M. Cain.

Despite its reception from out-of-state critics, the press release said Texas newspapers either ignored the book or panned it. At home in Fort Worth, the novel caused a widespread scandal shortly after its release.

"Within weeks, the city’s wealthy elite — the same 'dollar aristocracy' [Phillips had] spent 300 pages dissecting — had reportedly bought up copies en masse to suppress it," the release said. "The Fort Worth Public Library kept its copy under lock and key. Even Phillips’ own mother was said to have gone around town purchasing copies to limit the book’s reach. The novel vanished from circulation. The author’s literary career never fully recovered."

Over 40 years later, The Inheritors would be featured in literary critic A.C. Greene's Fifty Best Books on Texas list.

The 2026 edition will also include an introduction by Fort Worth author and journalist E.R. Bills, who spent years researching the book's history and "restoring it to its rightful place in American literary conversation."

The Inheritors can be pre-ordered on TCU Press' website for $26.95.

texas christian university tcu fort worth author society books history

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texas-themed great gatsby

Lost novel about Texas' 'hedonistic' elite revived by university press