📝 usncan Note: Here’s Who Dropped Off The 2025 Forbes 400 List
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Despite getting richer over the past year, several billionaires were still booted from this year’s ranking of the richest American.
It’s never been tougher to secure a spot on The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. With markets soaring and fortunes on the rise, the minimum net worth required to rank among the nation’s wealthiest people climbed by $500 million from last year, to a record $3.8 billion.
That’s left a total of 26 billionaires who were on the 2024 list in the dust. Eight of them are actually richer than they were a year ago—but were surpassed by others who have gotten even wealthier. Others have been hit by underperforming industries, tariff concerns and a decrease in consumer spending.
A further ten 2024 listees died since last year’s ranking: truck stop tycoon Judy Love; cosmetics kingpin Leonard Lauder; Home Depot cofounder Bernard Marcus; private equity mogul David Bonderman; FedEx founder Fred Smith; Cablevision and HBO founder Charles Dolan; Indianapolis Colt owner James Irsay; Campell’s Soup heir Mary Alice Dorrance Malone; valve manufacturing heir Catherine Lozick; and Dole Foods billionaire David Murdock.
Here are some of the most prominent people who ended up too poor to make this year’s Forbes 400 list.
Net worths are as of September 1, 2025.
Robert Sands
Net worth: $2.9 billion (vs. $3.4 billion on the 2024 Forbes 400) | Source of wealth: Liquor
Although he stepped down as CEO in 2019, much of Sands’ wealth still comes from his stake in Rochester-based Constellation Brands. The company, which owns Robert Mondavi Winery and the rights to the U.S. Modelo and Corona beer labels, recently slashed its full fiscal-year outlook, citing less demand for beer, particularly from its Hispanic consumers. Shares are down 31%.
Bennett Dorrance
Net worth: $3 billion (vs. $3.6 billion) | Source of wealth: Campbell’s Soup
An heir to the Campbell’s soup fortune, Dorrance lost $600 million in wealth as shares of the company cooled off by 36% over the past year. While soup sales are on the rise as more Americans cook at home, sales of the company’s snack division (which owns Goldfish, Pepperidge Farm and Snyder’s) declined by 2% in 2024.
Albert, James and Dorothy Chao
Net worth: $3.3 billion each (vs. $5.1 billion) | Source of wealth: Chemicals, building products
Weak earnings and a slowdown in the global construction sector have dented the fortunes of the Chao siblings, who each own an estimated 25% of Westlake Corporation, the petrochemicals and plastics manufacturer founded by their father, T.T. Chao (d. 2008). They’re a collective $5.4 billion poorer compared to 2024 amid a 40% drop in Westlake’s stock price.
Frank VanderSloot
Net worth: $3.3 billion (flat) | Source of wealth: Nutrition, wellness products
VanderSloot, who founded the health and wellness company Melaleuca, is just as rich as he was last year—but that’s not good enough in these rising times. He remains the wealthiest person in Idaho, however.
Jeff T. Green
Net worth: $3.3 billion (vs. $5.7 billion) | Source of wealth: Digital advertising
After reporting slowing revenue growth and higher operating expenses in its second quarter, shares of The Trade Desk took a steep dip from which they have yet to recover. Green cofounded the company, which helps advertisers find open ad space, in 2009. Since the beginning of the year, Green, who is CEO and chairman, has unloaded more than one million shares of the company worth nearly $200 million (pretax).
E. Joe Shoen
Net worth: $3.5 billion (vs. $4.5 billion) | Source of wealth: U-Haul
Shrinking profitability has driven shares of U-Haul to fall 24% over the past year, helping wipe a billion dollars off the fortune of the company’s chairman and CEO. In 1986, Shoen led an effort to oust his father, who cofounded the business with his wife, Shoen’s mother, in 1945.
