
23. Stephen Schwarzman – $19.1 billion
Schwarzman has a long and storied career in finance which started with time spent at the infamous Lehman Brothers firm that became the target of protest and outrage during the 2000s financial crisis. In his 2019 memoir, Schwarzman wrote about the many mistakes management made at the firm he witnessed firsthand. Thankfully, his own business, Blackstone, is still thriving and is the source of his immense wealth. Blackstone is currently the world’s largest buyout firm, despite having started as simply a luxury boutique merger advisory business. A 2017 initial public offering (IPO) of Blackstone stock gave Schwarzman his vast net worth.

Schwarzman comes from a comfortably wealthy family thanks to his father’s ownership of a dry goods store in New York. In 1985, he partnered with Peter Peterson, a billionaire thanks to Blackstone’s IPO, to found the firm. While they initially provided advisory services for businesses undergoing mergers and acquisitions, they quickly became a massive buyout firm in their own right, eventually becoming the single biggest in the industry worldwide. While his partner retired after their IPO, Schwarzman continues to serve as CEO and Chairman of Blackstone. He currently funds Schwarzman Scholars, which sends students to China to obtain a one-year Master’s degree.