The Walmart heiress Alice Walton is back on top of the world. According to Forbes, the Texas billionaire has reclaimed the title of the world’s wealthiest woman for the first time since 2022, surpassing L’Oreal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers from France.
According to Forbes, Walton’s estimated worth is $89.1 billion and Meyers’ is $88.4 billion.
For years, the two billionaires have competed to see who is the richest lady. Meyers dethroned Walton in 2019, but she reclaimed the top spot in 2020. In 2023, American Julia Koch of Koch Industries knocked Walton down to third place in the rankings.
According to Forbes, Walmart’s stock has increased by 47%, while L’Oreal’s value has decreased by 13%. This suggests that Walton will win in 2024.
On September 11, Forbes’ real-time tracker ranked Walton as the 18th richest person in the world, trailing her brothers Rob and Jim Walton.
Alice Walton, 74, is the sole daughter of the late Walmart founder Sam Walton.
In 1971, she graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio with a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance. She has lived in Texas for several years. She owns residences and ranches in Fort Worth and serves on the board of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.
Unlike other family members, Walton has never been involved in the day-to-day operations of Walmart; her fortune stems primarily from her interest in the company.
“Despite selling more than $22 billion of Walmart stock over the past decade — and giving away more than $11 billion of the retailer’s shares — Sam Walton’s heirs still own nearly 46 percent of the firm their father founded, due to significant stock buybacks that have prevented the family’s stake from being diluted,” Forbes says, estimating that three-quarters of the family’s stock is split evenly between Alice Walton and her siblings Jim and Rob.
Walmart is the world’s largest retailer, with over 2 million employees globally.
Alice Walton, a lifelong art collector, now focuses on the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (where she retired as chairman in 2021) and the new Alice L. Walton School of Medicine in Bentonville, Arkansas.
“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,” reported Forbes, “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 the richest person in Texas. Over the past few years, she has competed with Elon Musk for the top slot in Texas. The Austin-based inventor of Tesla and Space-X, as well as owner of social networking site X, remains the wealthiest Texan in 2024 (and globally, as of September 11).