Wharton graduate Donald Trump drops off Forbes 400 list of richest people

For the first time in over two decades, former President of the United States and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump fell short of the threshold needed to make the Forbes 400 list of America’s richest people.

Although Trump’s net worth remains an estimated $2.5 billion for the second year in a row, a higher cutoff of $2.9 billion leaves him $400 million behind the list’s lowest spot, Forbes reported. Last year, Trump ranked No. 339, his lowest ranking since entering the list in 1996, far below his top spot of No. 71 in 2003.

Trumps’ failure to divest and diversify his assets was the central reason for his exit from the list, costing Trump upwards of $2 billion, Forbes wrote. Since the start of the pandemic, while the values of technology stocks and cryptocurrencies have boomed, Trump’s wealth is mostly limited to big-city properties, which declined in value, according to Forbes.

Ronald Perelman, a 1964 Wharton graduate who received his MBA in 1966 and namesake of the Perelman Quadrangle and the Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics, also dropped off the list for the first time since 1987, despite a net worth of $2.8 billion. Howard Marks, the 1967 Wharton Graduate who established an endowment for the Marks Family Center for Excellence in Writing, with a $2.2 billion net worth, was not included on this year’s list.

In 2019, Penn was the most represented school in the rankings, with 19 graduates making the list. Despite Trump’s exclusion from the Forbes 400 list in 2021, Penn graduates occupied several spaces. Tesla and SpaceX CEO and 1997 College and Wharton graduate Elon Musk held the No. 2 spot, with a net worth up $130 billion from last year’s list, just behind Princeton graduate Jeff Bezos.

Other well-known Penn graduates on the Forbes 400 list include 1954 Wharton graduate Leonard Lauder at No. 25 with a net worth of $28.9 billion; 1985 College and Wharton graduate Laurene Powell Jobs at No. 33 with a net worth of $22.1 billion; and 1992 College and Wharton graduate Jonathan Gray at No. 120 with a net worth of $7.4 billion.