Step aside Kylie Jenner, Oprah Winfrey is truly a ‘self-made’ billionaire: America’s 11 richest female entrepreneurs ranked
When Kylie Jenner was called the US’ youngest self-made billionaire, Twitter went nuts. Now Forbes has created a list crowning Oprah Winfrey with the highest ‘self-made score’, but who has earned even more than beloved Lady O?
The charged term “self-made” has been the recent source of widespread public outcry.
When Forbes proclaimed Kylie Jenner the youngest “self-made billionaire” in March, many took to Twitter to grumble that the term did not properly reflect that her moneyed upbringing provided her with the platform for success.
In response, Forbes offered its own definition for “self-made”: “Someone who built a company or established a fortune on her own, rather than inheriting some or all of it”.
Forbes now even has a “self-made score”, rated on a scale of one to 10, which approximates a subject’s role in their wealth creation. A score of one would belong to someone like Alice Walton, the Walmart heiress worth US$51.4 billion, who “inherited her fortune but is not working to increase it”. A score of 10 was bestowed on only Oprah Winfrey, someone “self-made who not only grew up poor but also overcame significant obstacles”.
Even with the sliding scoring system, the broad “self-made” definition only applied to 11 women on this year's Forbes 400 list – an annual ranking of America’s 400 richest residents. Jenner, with her estimated net worth of US$1 billion, did not even qualify for the list's US$2.1 billion minimum. She has a self-made score of seven, meaning she “got a head start from wealthy parents and a moneyed background”.
Most of the women on this list scored an eight (“self-made who came from a middle- or upper-middle-class background”) or a nine (“self-made who came from a largely working-class background; rose from little or nothing”).
The members of the Forbes 400 are worth combined US$2.96 trillion. The self-made women’s club, one of the smallest subsections of the overall list, is worth a collective US$37.2 billion.
Here are the 11 richest self-made women in the US. They are ranked in ascending order of wealth and their net worth estimates as of October 2, 2019.
11. Elaine Wynn has a net worth of US$2.4 billion
Net worth: US$2.4 billion