By Spy Uganda
Walmart heiress Alice Walton has taken back the title of world’s wealthiest woman. According toForbes, Walton has toppled L’Oreal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers of France to become the richest woman on the planet for the first time since 2022.
Walton’s estimated fortune is now $89.1 billion and Meyers’ is $88.4 billion, Forbes says.
The two billionaires have battled for richest-woman supremacy for years. Meyers knocked Walton off her perch in 2019, then Walton climbed back on top in 2020. Also in the mix has been American Julia Koch of Koch Industries, who booted Walton down to No. 3 in 2023.
But with Walmart stock up 47 percent and L’Oreal’s down 13 percent, Forbes says, Walton wins in 2024.
According to Forbes’real-time tracker on September 5, Walton is the 21st richest person in the world, a few places behind her brothers Rob and Jim Walton.
Alice Walton, 74, is the only daughter of late Walmart founder Sam Walton. While she devotes most of her time and energy now to her Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (from which she retired as chairman in 2021) and the new Alice L. Walton School of Medicine – both in her native Bentonville, Arkansas – Forbes still lists her residence as Fort Worth. She has owned homes and ranches in the Fort Worth area and sits on the board of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.
“Alice Walton has ramped up her personal philanthropy over the last decade, pouring more than $5.7 billion into five family charitable foundations that have doled out more than $1.1 billion of her funds to date,” Forbes says, “including more than $377 million her Art Bridges Foundation has spent acquiring and loaning out works of American art to more than 230 museums across the country since its founding in 2016.”
Walton is not, however, the richest person in Texas. For the last few years, she’s duked it out with Elon Musk for the top spot in the Lone Star State. The Austin-based founder of Tesla and Space-X and owner of social media platform X continues his reign as the wealthiest Texan in 2024 and the second-richest person in the world.
The richest human being on Planet Earth is Frenchman Bernard Arnault, head of the LVMH empire of 75 fashion and cosmetics brands, including Louis Vuitton and Sephora. His estimated real-time fortune is $176 billion.
