forbes

Plenty of billionaires ask not to be on the list. Sometimes they cite privacy or security, sometimes they're worried about the IRS, sometimes they just want to appear down to earth.

Much less than Forbes 400 members. And certainly less than 1 million!

1. There's a small but vocal minority of billionaires who want to be higher on the list, and Trump is certainly in that category. You can find more on our long history with Trump here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2018/04/20/the-5-things-to-know-about-president-trumps-36-year-relationship-with-the-forbes-400/#523d5ea65928

Believe it or not, some billionaires will send us their bank statements as long as we agree to keep specifics confidential. It’s usually when they want to be higher up the list and we insist on proof.

For other private businesses, the best answer is that it depends. Sometimes we can track their money by what they are buying, such as art or sports teams, or by tracking sales of their stocks or private business and by valuing any non public assets. Over the years we’ve valued everything from real estate to game parks to yachts.

Well not sure this answers directly but I still retell the story about the billionaire who refused to shake our hands and gave us his pinky to shake instead 😊. In all seriousness, it’s not super surprising anymore but I love the stories of the people who have endured such hardships before achieving extraordinary success. Bob Parsons, the founder of godaddy.com pretty much flunked out of fifth grade and grew up poor as a church mouse. Dennis Washington operated a crane in Alaska as a teen, never went to college, worked for his uncle and then finally quit and started out on his own. These stories never get old. One of my colleagues found out their college roommate was part of a billionaire family when she was reporting a story on another billionaire years later. My other colleague Chase who is with me today is telling the story about how he started looking into Arizona iced tea founder’s fortune after seeing how big his house was on Google Maps. Turned out he was a billionaire and we ended up doing a big magazine story on him: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2017/10/17/inside-arizona-iced-tea-how-don-vultaggio-beat-snapple-became-a-billionaire-and-nearly-lost-it-all/#682b77668fd0