The Vanderbilts. The Melons. The Morgans.
A century ago, these names signified wealth, luxury, and privilege, but a new group of names has taken over billionaire lists: Musk, Bezos, and Gates.
With these new names come new heirs and heiresses — those who have grown up with and stand to inherit massive amounts of wealth. A number of children of the tech generation are beginning to make themselves known, though many in a different way than the progeny of oil barons or banking titans of the past.
“There’s definitely been a greater openness in discussing financial matters with peers and online communities,” Ashley Fell, social researcher at generational research firm McCrindle, told Business Insider. “Probably this comes from being influenced by the transparency culture of social media and the fact that people do well online because they’re more authentic and they share.”
A number of today’s heirs and heiress’ have begun doing what they have for generations — working for their family businesses.
While Steve Ballmer’s sons lived a relatively normal life growing up, they have certainly benefited from their father’s Microsoft fortune. The eldest of his children, Sam, works for the family’s Ballmer Group, where he focuses on directing its philanthropic strategy toward the climate crisis. The Arnault children — there are five — are currently engaged in what seems like a much more congenial version of “Succession” for taking the helm at the family’s company that owns LVMH, the home of Louis Vuitton and Sephora.
Some have become vocal advocates for certain issues and causes, choosing to use their financial standing to become young philanthropic voices.
“Families know that planning is really essential in terms of if the family is wealthy,” Maya Imberg, the head of thought leadership and analytics at data firm Altrata, told Business Insider. “They’re more and more bringing in their children, the grandparents, the grandchildren, in terms of their kind of overall view of how they want to forge a legacy — not just in terms of wealth preservation, but also in terms of philanthropic giving.”
The children of Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates — Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe Gates — receive a giving allowance to be used toward philanthropy of their choice, Puck reported earlier this year.
The Gates daughters, Jennifer and Pheobe, have been outspoken voices in the fields of public health and reproductive rights, respectively. The former, a pediatrician, has taken trips to Kenya centered on public health, while the latter graduated from Stanford in three years and started a climate-friendly fashion tech platform. And while quieter on social media, the Gates’s son, Rory, has become a magnet for those in DC looking for philanthropic funds, particularly for Democratic causes.
We took a look at the richest people in the world, according to the latest calculations by Forbes, who have children older than 18 but younger than 40. Here’s what we know about them — and what they may do with the vast sums of money they could one day attain.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk has at least 11 kids with at least three different partners.
His eldest are twins Vivian Jenna Wilson and Griffin, born in 2004, who he shares with his first wife, author Justine Musk. The couple also shares triplets Kai, Saxon, and Damian, born in 2006.
The twins largely flew under the radar, though Wilson has recently made news. In 2022, she received approval to legally change her name and gender, writing in her petition that she no longer wanted “to be related to my biological father in any way.”
The two have butted heads publicly after Musk criticized laws that allow those under the age of 18 to transition. He said he was “tricked into” signing the papers to approve Wilson’s transition and believed her to be “dead, killed by the woke mind virus.”
Wilson responded, calling Musk “cruel,” “uncaring,” and “narcissistic” in an interview with NBC News.
Musk has not made clear his plans for his fortune beyond his death, though it seems he does not believe in just giving his children his massive $221 billion fortune.
“I am definitely not of the school of automatically giving my kids some shares of the companies, even if they have no interest or inclination or ability to manage the company,” Musk said at last year’s Wall Street Journal CEO Council summit.
Jeff Bezos
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has four children — Preston, George, Henry, and Emmy — with his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott. All four have shied away from the limelight.
Preston, Bezos’s eldest, graduated from MIT in 2022 with a Bachelor of Science in Humanities and Engineering. Little is known about his other three children, though his daughter was spotted touring USC in 2022.
Both Bezos and Scott have signalled they will give away most of their wealth, which measures $186 billion and $31 billion, respectively. In 2022, Bezos said he plans to donate most of his fortune, and he has focused his giving on combatting climate change so far.
Scott, a prolific giver, signed the Giving Pledge in 2019 and has donated billions since.
Bernard Arnault
The chairman of luxury conglomerate LVMH has five children, the youngest of whom are in their late 20s and early 30s. Each of them is involved in the family business, though Arnault has left the question of succession to his $177 billion empire very much up in the air.
“The best person inside the family or outside the family should be one day my successor,” Arnault said last year. “But it’s not something that I hope is a duel for the near future.”
Delphine and Antoine, the eldest two Arnaults, are the CEO of Christain Dior and the CEO of the family’s holding company, Christian Dior SE, respectively.
Alexandre, the second eldest son, is a VP at Tiffany and Co. Frédéric has been promoted three times this year, and he now heads one of the family’s holding companies, Financière Agache. Like his three older siblings, he serves on the company’s board of directors. Arnault’s youngest son, Jean, graduated from Imperial College in London in 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile, and now serves as a director in Louis Vuitton’s watch division.
Larry Ellison
The children of Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison are both big names in Hollywood, with his son, David — who is slightly older than 40 — likely taking the helm at one of Tinseltown’s storied companies soon. Both of his kids have received their fair share of Oracle and Netsuite stock.
David is set to be the future CEO of Paramount after his Skydance — funded in part by his father, who is worth $163 billion — agreed to buy the beleaguered media company in June. Skydance made a name for itself as a hitmaker and was behind 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” among many other films.
His younger sister, Megan, also owns a production company, Annapurna Pictures. The studio is behind Oscar nominees “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Her,” “American Hustle,” and “Phantom Thread.”
Bill Gates
Bill Gates shares three kids with his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates. Each has been the subject of quite a bit of intrigue and is beginning to make a name in philanthropy.
His eldest daughter, 28-year-old Jennifer Gates Nassar, used to be known for her horseback riding. A decorated equestrian, her father spent millions buying land for her stables in California and Wellington, Florida. She has one child with Egyptian equestrian Nayel Nassar and announced in June she is expecting a second.
After graduating from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in May, she now spends most of her time in residency as a pediatrician. She also received a Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University, perhaps inspired by her parents’ extensive philanthropic work in the space.
“I was born into a huge situation of privilege,” Jennifer said in a 2020 interview. “I think it’s about using those opportunities and learning from them to find things that I’m passionate about and hopefully make the world a little bit of a better place.”
She has posted on social media about visiting Kenya, where she learned about childhood health and development in the country.
Her younger sister Pheobe recently graduated from Stanford in just three years and splits her time between being a tech mogul and philanthropist. Active on social media, she posts and speaks regularly about reproductive rights and has donated millions to abortion rights groups, The Wall Street Journal reported. Her day job is running Phia, a sustainable fashion technology platform that has yet to launch.
The middle Gates child, Rory, is the most private of the three. He lives in Washington, DC, where Puck reported he is seen as a “rich target for Democratic social-climbers, influence-peddlers, and all variety of money chasers.”
Both Gates, worth $129 billion, and French Gates, worth $10.5 billion, are known for their philanthropy and have pledged to give away most of their wealth. Gates has reportedly said that he plans to leave $10 million — a pittance compared to his net worth — to each of his children.
Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer’s three sons had a relatively normal upper-middle class upbringing in Seattle, his middle son Pete told Business Insider.
“I remember a kid asking me how many bathrooms my house had. Another kid randomly asked me, ‘Does your mom drive a Mercedes?’ And I was like, ‘No, she drives a Ford Fusion,’” he said.
While their father used to run Microsoft and is worth $121 billion, the family didn’t talk much about its wealth, and the three boys were taught to spend smartly, Pete said. In addition to working software engineering internships that he got through connections, Pete also worked regular odd jobs over the summer. He eventually became a product manager before he inherited money from his grandfather at age 25, allowing him to quit his job and become a full-time comedian.
Ballmer’s eldest son, Sam, works at the family office, where he’s the climate lead, according to his LinkedIn profile. He runs the office’s philanthropic approach to the climate crisis, granting money to groups working to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The youngest Ballmer, Aaron, works as a software consultant for PYNNE Digital, which builds technology for startups, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Mukesh Ambani
Reliance Industries’ Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in India, has three kids.
All three of his children work for the family business, though they are more widely known for the lavish weddings they’ve had. The eldest are 32-year-old twins Isha and Akash. Isha’s 2018 wedding celebrations included performances by Beyoncé and John Legend.
Anant Ambani, the youngest of the Ambanis, recently made headlines for his own wedding, which included multiple pre-wedding celebrations with performances from Rihanna and Justin Beiber. Guests at the wedding included Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra, Bill Gates, and two Kardashians. Estimates peg the price tag of the event at $60 million.
Jensen Huang
Newer to the top of the list of richest people on Earth, there is less public information about Jensen Huang than others on the list who has a net worth of $96 billion, t. According to a profile for his alma mater Oregon State University, he has two kids.
Both of them work for Nvidia, according to their LinkedIn profiles. His son Spencer, who graduated from Columbia College Chicago in 2012, works as a product manager, while his daughter Madison, who has a series of culinary degrees, works in product marketing.
Michael Dell
Michael Dell’s four children — all in their late 20s and early 30s — were raised in Austin, Texas, far from Silicon Valley, but that hasn’t kept them out of the family industry of tech.
Kira Dell, the eldest, works as an independent consultant after having held jobs at various social-justice-focused organizations, including a “social care technology” company.
Her younger sister, Alexa, is much more familiar with the tech space. After dropping out of college and working for a dating app, she started a tech consulting firm, and her clients have included Bumble.
“The idea that if we can make the world a smaller place with technology, we can really exponentially expand the boundaries of innovation and what’s possible within the world,” Alexa told Business Insider. “That movement was incredibly intriguing to me, and I wanted to be part of that.”
Little is publicly available about Juliette Dell, an equestrian who, at one point, interned at Dell Technologies.
The youngest Dell, Zach, graduated from the University of Southern California in 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile, which also lists an internship at his dad’s family office. For the past year or so, he’s worked as the cofounder and CEO of Base Power Company, a battery-powered energy company that’s raised $68 million, according to PitchBook.
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