A rich list just wouldn’t be complete without Oprah Winfrey, whose fortune has once again put her onto the Forbes 400, a roster of America’s wealthiest residents in 2002. The chat show queen’s $900 million stash seems like a drop in the bucket, however, when compared with fellow media moguls Steven Spielberg and his Dreamworks business partner David Geffen, who took home $2.2 billion and $3.8 billion, respectively.
And Steven is not the only director to make the list – his Raiders Of The Lost Ark pal George Lucas made a not-too-shabby $3 billion last year.
Media mogul fortunes, though impressive, could not compete with the man who claimed the top spot in the survey – again. Microsoft founder Bill Gates is still America’s wealthiest citizen, with a $43 billion bank account. However, this formidable amount is $9 billion less than what the university dropout chalked up the year before and he’s nearly $20 billion poorer than he was two years ago.
One mogul who is missing from this year’s list is powerhouse Martha Stewart. Her Martha Stewart Omnimedia shares have dropped by 60% from their 52-week high, and the distributor of her homewares line, K-Mart, filed for bankruptcy this year, taking out a significant chunk of her 2000 reported $650 billion worth.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
